Friday, September 19, 2008

Bitten

OMG, I feel bitten by the bug to travel again. To up, up and away with TOA - the friendly, friendly way.



(Every Aussie roughly my age now has the old airline jingle for TAA running through their head.)

OK, so I can neither take time off work or afford to do it right now, but I guess that's why it's a bug right? Something that irritates, gives you the itch and gets under the skin. (Um, ewwww. Remind me not to use that metaphor again.) Otherwise this post would all be "I'm off to Venice, later bitches!" instead. Le sigh.

That is all.

~~~

No, wait. I can't reference the long defunct Aussie airline TAA without giving you something by way of background. Once upon a time TAA and Ansett were the only two domestic airlines in Australia, a duopoly that saw high standards and even higher fares. TAA became Australian Airlines, Ansett went bankrupt, QANTAS started flying domestic (where before they international only), new lower priced players entered the market, they went bankrupt too, Australian Airlines closed... it's a long story. Now we have choice and lower fares, but lower standards, no china crockery and most of the time almost no catering. I don't miss the prices, but I do miss the glamour.

Anyhoo, a bit of vintage TAA advertising (including the famous jingle based on the 5th Dimension song "Up, Up and Away") courtesy of youtube:


1960s TAA ad.


A rather eccentric TAA cargo services ad from 1985. Dig those true-blue dinky di accents!
Big Mac is the Big Load Boy... snerk.

4 comments:

Michael Guy said...

You had me at "duopoly"...

Bitch, I would sooo join you in Venice. Then un-join you, real fast, like...

The Other Andrew said...

Deal! I need to see Venice before I get a little too Death In Venice, if you know what I mean...

The Mutant said...

This big load of Big Mac's, just how big is it? I'm curious as hell now! Could that be any more ocker though... I love it!

The Other Andrew said...

Kezza, I'm guessing it's a whopper!