Qantas Welcomes New Aircraft on Tasman Route

In the second week of my placement we began preparing for an event that would take place in Wellington, New Zealand. On the 8th February Qantas would announce the arrival of a new Boeing 737-800 aircraft that would operate the Wellington- Australia route and would be named in honour of Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer.

My roles were to write the media release for the event, research the great explorers who were to give their names to the three new aircraft, call on relevant Qantas departments to obtain information about the product offering of the new B737 and obtain information about the New Zealand Rugby World Cup.

I began by researching into the lives of the three explorers- Sir Edmund Hillary, William Pickering and Abel Tasman. The event was to showcase the first new B737-800 into service that was to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary, and the following two would be put into service later that month. From my research, I learnt to approach things with an open mind. As this was a New Zealand event, I immediately thought that all three explorers would be of New Zealand decent. This however was not the case. I am also sure my research told me this, but somehow I did not notice! It was not until hours before the release was due out, that one of our executives noticed the mistake, even after it had been passed through at least three of my managers, and I quickly needed to make the changes.

I also learnt that I needed to speak to a lot of different people to obtain the correct information. I needed to speak with the Fleet Managers to find out specific dates, Route managers to obtain correct informationa about where exactly the new aircraft would be flying to and the Product centre to find out the features of the new aircraft. I began with calling each relevant person. Many could provide information directly over the phone, but others wanted a detailed email of what I wanted exactly.

I spoke with our sponsorship department who could provide me with information about the Rugby World Cup. This was relevant to put into the release, as the arrival of these new aircraft would mean that Qantas could add extra flights to cope with the New Zealand 2011 Rugby World Cup Demand.

Research is very time consuming and sometimes confusing if you are unfamiliar with what you need exactly. It took me a week to draft a media release I was happy with and write up three biographies, but once I was done, it was very satisfying and rewarding that a lot of my hard work had actually been used in the final release that would be viewed by hundreds of people.