Cattle Call: This week in quirky aviation news: Free tickets, re-branding suggestions, Twitter fails

The customer is always right, the adage goes. But maybe not. At Virgin Australia's annual general meeting this week an elderly shareholder during question time with CEO John Borghetti asked if he had considered capitalising all of the As in Virgin Australia's branding. "A triple A airline," the shareholder proposed. The always diplomatic Mr Borghetti responded, "Um you know I-I uh I ah I hadn't thought about it. Um it's a-it's a good thought, thank you."

There were many more thank yous out of Melbourne, Australia after Air New Zealand gave unassuming diners free tickets to Wellington. The diners were eating at restaurant WLG, whose name is the same as Wellington airport's IATA code. The publicity move, with video, follows LAN giving New York diners free tickets to Chile - arguably a better deal, but Air New Zealand had more fun with its promotion. Prior to giving out the tickets, Air New Zealand flight attendants gave a safety demonstration tailored to the restaurant environment, asking diners to put their "wine glass in the upright position".

Also putting things in the upright position was the US Department of Transportation, whose efforts to crackdown on hidden ticket pricing fees resulted with a USD50,000 fine to Spirit Airlines for a Tweet. Spirit in Jun-2011 offered a USD9 one-way fare from Los Angeles but failed to disclose taxes and fees that applied in addition to the fare. While Tweets are limited to 140 characters - not enough for an airline's verbose T&C - airlines are often permitted to include a link stipulating the full details. Spirit, however, required customers to click on two links to read the full conditions, which the DOT considered deceptive.

Qantas also fell victim to Twitter after it offered a pair of first class pyjamas to followers who told what their "dream luxury inflight experience" was. Answers had to be accompanied with the hashtag #QantasLuxury, inspiring thousands of sarcastic posts about airline luxury. Qantas stayed quiet for the first few hours of the derailment before playing along, saying "At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge." Later in the day the airline posted a photo of the pyjamas with the caption "Ladies and gentlemen: Australia's most famous pyjamas. May we present Exhibit A."

An Oregon man will be presenting his ears as exhibit A as part of a USD2 million lawsuit he has filed against Delta Air Lines for allegedly being on a flight with excess noise that has caused him permanent hearing loss. The man was seated in 10B, identified as an exit row, making the aircraft (exhibit B) likely to be an A320 - and not, for example, a MD-80 whose engines are mounted immediately outside the fuselage.

Also in the noise department is Bruce Dickinson, the singer of English heavy metal band Iron Maiden and also pilot of Gatwick-based Astraues Airlines, which went into administration on 21-Nov-2011. Dickinson says he is not content to busk on the streets but will instead work on a plan to bring Astraeus back to business or create a new airline for its employees. Presumably the airline will continue to lease an aircraft to Dickinson's band for when they go on tour. Avoid seat 10B.