Flying High over the Land Down Under

Touring Australia by Plane

The 900-pound gorilla of Australian air travel is

Qantas

(www.qantas.com), which controls the skies for the bulk of the domestic air market. This means there are plenty of connections, but not much choice or chance to shop around for a cheaper ticket.

The Competition

The only significant competition to Qantas is scrappy little

Virgin Blue

(TK), which helps cuts the cost of the routes it flies--TK. (Yes, this is essentially the same as Virgin Atlantic; for arcane code-sharing reasons, Richard Branson had to create yet another, seperate airline in order to break into the Aussie market.)

You'll also see "another" no-frills airline called

Jetstar Asia

(TK), but that's bascially just an arm of the Qantas octopus, fielding its own low cost carrier in a desperate attempt to squash the competition (that way Delta and United have been trying in the US with Song and Ted). Still, the tickets are cheaper than on flagship Qantas, so it has its uses.

The Air Pass

One benefit of the Qantas near-monopoly is the

Aussie Air Pass,

available only to peopel who live outside Australia. The pass covers transpacific airfare from the U.S. to Sydney, plus up to three internal flights within Australia, and it starts at just $999--not bad, when you consider that's just $150 more than the cheapest transpacific ticket alone.

If you're looking to bounce around to several areas (the typical tourist trail hits Sydney, Cairns for the Great Barrier Reef, and Alice Springs for the Outback and Uluru), the Aussie Air Pass is probably your best bet.

Prices are based on flights out of Los Angeles (other US gateways cost more), and at $999 covers domestic segments only in Southeastern Australia (TK). If you want to be able to use it to fly up to Cairns (Great Barrier Reef, rain forests) or Darwin or Alice Springs (the Outback, Kakadu National Park, Uluru/Ayers Rock), the base price jumps to $TK; to cover Western Australia as well (Perth), it'll cost from $TK.