Qantas tries to bring back that flying feeling, releasing in-flight soundtrack

Qantas is doing its best to keep people in the mood for travel, releasing for the first time its in-flight soundtrack | LISTEN

Passengers on-board a Qantas flight to Uluru in October, 2020. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

First came the sale of Qantas pyjamas, then the fully-stocked cabin carts. Now the airline is offering up its original in-flight soundtrack to keep us in the mood for air travel.

Created by Australian composer Haydn Walker and produced by Nathan Cavaleri, the signature track is being made available for free on Spotify and Apple Music for the first time.

The 15-minute composition can also be heard on Qantas’s YouTube channel, where the music accompanies aerial images of Australian landscapes.

The move follows numerous requests from frequent flyers who were missing the “sounds” of flight after 18 months of reduced services due to Covid-related travel restrictions.

In a further initiative to promote air travel, Qantas has released a series of aviation-themed backgrounds for use in virtual meetings.

Qantas Group chief customer officer Stephanie Tully said the backgrounds would allow travellers to conduct meetings from “the comfort of their business class seat, sitting behind the pilots in the cockpit jump seat, or from one of the airline’s lounges”.

She said the soundtrack and backgrounds amounted to a “fun way to engage with frequent flyers keen to recapture the experience of being up in the air”.

“Our customers tell us they miss flying as much as getting to the destination itself and this sensory experience will help fill the temporary void while some of us can’t fly because of border closures,” said Ms Tully

“We have some of the most engaged frequent flyer members in the world and while we might not be able to take them around the world right now, we can remind them of what they have to look forward to when we welcome them back on board a Qantas flight in the future.”

In recent weeks, flying has contracted to levels seen at the height of the pandemic last year, due to lockdowns in three capital cities and widespread border closures.

Flights on Australia’s busiest route of Sydney-Melbourne have been reduced to just a couple a day, with Qantas preparing to stand down 2500 workers in response to the huge downturn.

Regional Express Airlines will also announce hundreds of stand-downs by the end of the week, and Virgin Australia continues to talk to unions about the best way to manage the reduced flying.

It is a dramatic turnaround from early May, when airlines were confidently forecasting returns to pre-Covid levels of domestic travel following a government-subsidised half-price fare promotion.

Latest airfare data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics showed business fares at an all-time low, sinking to 46.8 per cent of the long-term average.

Best discount fares were also at historic lows of 55.1 per cent of the long-term average, due to the half-price scheme now extended until late November.