Virgin Australia acknowledgement of veterans

My own 2c – and this is my personal view, not that of Australian Business Traveller – is that I like the US airline custom of an announcement thanking members of the defence forces for their service, and I have no problem with them being offered priority boarding, although they're free not to take advantage of it – and I suspect most Aussie defence force members won't, because from what I'm told (including by some serving members) is that this isn't in their nature. But I disagree with the idea of being asked on board to applaud our servicemen and servicewomen, as I don't believe this is part of the Aussie 'social DNA'.

We flew American Airlines within the US at Christmas and I don't recall a single announcement regarding Veterans.