US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Anyone fly US (Envoy/J) and Qantas business class?

OK, I'll admit it. I'm not a million mile a year road warrior.

However, I have flown US Airways 767 transatlantic on Envoy/business class.

How does the Qantas business class seat compare to that? A few airline's business class seats are jokes. One website says that QF seat recline 11". Is that good? I'm more interested in the recline that the width as I haven't developed the middle-aged spare tire yet (knock on wood).

It's too bad you haven't flown Envoy on the A330, since the seat model is the exact same (although the dimensions may be a little different).

I'll leave it to others to fill in the details other than this little factoid.

Skylink USA...

There is not a lot of similarity between the US Envoy seats on the 767 and the "Dreamtime Seat" offered on QF Business class. BizJet is correct about the QF seat and the Envoy seat on US's A330's being similar. However, the QF configuration has less pitch than US on both the 767 and the 330. QF has about 52" pitch between rows in Biz while US has 60" on the 330 and 55" on the 767. Because of this the QF seat does not recline as far as the Envoy 330 seats (but probably about the same as the US 767 seats).

Still, the QF seats are as comfortable (if not more so) than the US 767 seats. I would highly recommend getting upstairs on the QF 747-400 for the trans-Pacific flights. Downstairs configuration is 2x3x2 in 2 cabins while upstairs Biz Class is a 2x2 configuration. Much more of an intimate feel upstairs. Even better, snag the exit row in the middle of the upstairs biz cabin. There is about 6 feet between those 4 seats and the row in front. Regardless, I think you will find the QF biz class a fine way to get to Oz. Enjoy your trip... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You can take a virtual tour of a Qantas B747-400 here:

http://www.qantas.com.au/flights/vrml/tourintro.html

QF BC seats may be the same as BC on the US 330s but recline is much more restricted. Not very comfortable even on daytime flights.

i agree terenz. i did syd-mel-sin-lhr on qf and was extremely disappointed. and crippled. i felt really bad for those people in coach, because the plane was pretty full.

Ionnman. Actually (and ironically), I find the QF Y seats much more comfortable in the recline department than the BC seats! I flew YVR-HNL-YVR a year ago and the seat back was much more comfortable (7-7.5" of recline vs. 9-9.5" in BC.

Just another opinion....we found the QF BC seats to be most comfortable in width and recline.

We sat upstairs. I was not impressed with the BC section downstairs...looked a little crowded. The upper deck, however, made for a lovely flight.

I found the QF seats to be more comfortable than the US seats, if for no other reason than that they WORKED. I've had bad luck every time on the A-330.

Thanks for the reply. Others welcomed to add more comments.

I didn't want to fly QF only to find it not much better that Y class. However, it seems that seating is better than coach.

Particularly in Europe, business class is sometimes a joke.

I haven't flown QF, but it sounds to me like business class is slightly before the average (good) biz class, while coach class if far better than the average coach class. That doesn't mean that biz class is close to coach class as all! Relative to other products, biz class might be bad and coach great, but relative to each other, business class allows you to stretch, spread out, relax, and breathe. None of these things are possible in coach.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Skylink USA:
I didn't want to fly QF only to find it not much better that Y class.</font>


There is a HUGE difference between QF Biz and Coach class. Also don't forget that LAX-SYD flight can push 15 hours! I don't care how good the cookies are or how pleasant the FA's are on such and such a flight in coach... 15 hours is 15 hours... space is what you need!

Also - there is no comparison between intra-european biz class and international biz class.

I read in Business Traveler magazine (January 2002 issue) that Quantas Business class was top rated for business class going to South Pacific/OZ. Of course, SQ was top rated for overall airlines.

I'd advocate going for QF FC. As far as seat comfort (particularly seat recline) goes, QF BC compares poorly to int'l BC of CX, BA (even old Club World), NW, US, and AC.

My experience is with the old BC, Dreamtime (current), and the intermediate one.