The main airlines are the long-established Qantas and budget airlines JetStar and Virgin Blue. Qantas has the most extensive flight network, while Virgin Blue is quickly expanding to meet demand. JetStar is the newest airline having started up in early 2004. All three airlines have relatively young fleets.

Generally JetStar (tel 13 15 38; website www.jetstar.com.au) and Virgin Blue (tel 13 67 89; website www.virginblue.com.au) offer the cheapest fares of the three main airlines but Qantas (tel 13 13 13; website www.qantas.com.au) has good value red e-deals advertised on its website.

Regional Express, also known as Rex Airlines (tel 13 17 13; website www.rex.com.au) flies to around 30 regional destinations in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria. The main cities that Rex flies to are Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney; the most northern destination on the Rex network is Ballina/Byron Bay and they also fly to outback towns like Broken Hill, Olympic Dam and Coober Pedy. Rex has introduced two excellent value backpacker travel passes that allow either one month unlimited standby travel for $499 or two months for $949. These passes are only available to international travellers with a HI/YHA, ISIC, IYTC or VIP card and you cannot use this pass to accrue frequent flyer points. Despite the limited reach of the Rex network, this is probably Australia’s best value travel pass.

Other regional airlines include SkyWest (tel 1300 66 00 88; website www.skywest.com.au) and Alliance Airlines (tel 1300 13 00 92; website www.allianceairlines.com.au). These regional airlines operate flights to smaller cities and some of their fares are competitive with the bigger carriers, particularly on the busier routes.

Qantas is part of the One World network along with American Airlines and British Airways. If you’re not already a member of a OneWorld airline’s frequent flyer programme you can join American Airlines programme for free and earn points with Qantas flights, rather than paying to join the Qantas frequent flyer programme. You can sign up for the American Airlines frequent flyer programme on their website (www.aa.com).