Qantas Frequent Flyer - Dang It! QF have switched Configs on me!

Travelling BNE to AKL soon on QF25 in J.

Had nicely arranged seat 2K on 3 Class config. That is, an F seat! ^

This morning I checked my booking and had been moved to 1A :confused: .

Did a seat map.. oh no! :eek: 1B is allocated... they have changed the aircraft configuration to 2 class; worse, Y starts at Row 25 so it's not even sky beds, it's the old dream time seats :( .

Ok, J guru's. I'm still keen to travel in the front cabin (Zone A (www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/flying/inTheAir/ourAircraft/744-66J366Y.pdf)); and there are plenty of free seats. In fact it's showing J9 C9 D9 I0 U1.

Currently Zone A the seats allocated are 1A (moi), 1B, 1J, 1K, 2J, 2K, 5J & 5K. This leaves 2-A/B, 3/4-A/B/J/K, 5-A/B/E/F. Upper deck is 1/2 full (14/30) and rows 25 & 26 have 2/14 allocated.

YMMV, but what seats would you guys be looking for? (It's only a short 3 hours flight)

1A/K have a unique benefit on the 747: the view out the window is partially forward facing. You get to see things that only the pilots see (and aren't visible from the other windows on the plane). Probalby the best feature on such a short flight, makes for a bit of a unique experience and something to tell later.

1A/K have a unique benefit on the 747: the view out the window is partially forward facing. You get to see things that only the pilots see (and aren't visible from the other windows on the plane). Probalby the best feature on such a short flight, makes for a bit of a unique experience and something to tell later.
I would either stick with 1A or look for 5E or F.

1A on the Boarding Pass looks far more impressive than 5 (anything). In a years time, you won't remeber anything but "I got to turn left".

As for the view, the slightly forward part is great. The other great feeling is that there's nothing between you and 1000 km/h of wind except for a bit of aluminium and a radar antenae. The pilots don't even get to feel the impact first....

I would stick with 1A. Many a time I have turned up for a trans tasman flight expecting a 2 class aircraft to find a 3 class plane instead. However, 5E isn't half bad either with the foot locker and is one of the first off the plane at the other end. You do feel somewhat on show for the whole world to see in this row and yes some people will try and cross in front of you between your legs and the foot locker, even when you are reclined.

Back to seat 1A, do you actually know 1B is occupied and not just blocked? A seatmap check sadly can't tell the difference.

I would stick with 1A. Many a time I have turned up for a trans tasman flight expecting a 2 class aircraft to find a 3 class plane instead. ...It was a three class seat map up until I looked on Saturday morning when it had morphed into 2 class and my allocattion morphed from 2K to 1A.

... Back to seat 1A, do you actually know 1B is occupied and not just blocked? A seatmap check sadly can't tell the difference.Both ExpertFlyer and Amadeus Check my trip both showed 1B as occupied. ExpertFlyer in particular, differentiates between blocked and allocated seats.

Well, seems 'tis too late to do anything about my seating now; the latest seat map shows front cabin fully allocated with 13 J seats remaining: 6 upstairs and 7 downstairs.

... Did a seat map.. oh no! :eek: 1B is allocated... they have changed the aircraft configuration to 2 class; worse, Y starts at Row 25 so it's not even sky beds, it's the old dream time seats :( ...Ok, I'm travelling on this flight today and checked arrivals and departures this morning.

QF25 Ex SYD is running 50 mins late into BNE, Due 10:00, est 10:50. No way they can turn around in time for scheduled 11:25 departure for AKL & LAX. However, it is still showing as departing at 11:25 :confused: .

QF26 Ex AKL & LAX is running 50 mins late as well, Due 8:20, actually landed 9:12. However, QF26 is showing as departing for SYD 115 minutes after scheduled 9:45 at 11:40. :confused:

I know @:-) , they are swapping aircraft. It's more important to make the LAX (and AKL) slots than the SYD one.

When I checked in I was asked if I would prefer an upper deck seat. I mentioned I had allocated 1A and would prefer that. So received my BP for 1A.

Had a look at landed QF26, now taking QF25 back to AKL: VH-OJC (www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/flying/inTheAir/ourAircraft/744-56J356Y.pdf) ^ A skybed aircraft.
:p

I guess at checkin, the agent needed to move people upstairs. Zone A was showing full preallocation yesterday while there were ½ a dozen free up top.

I still don't get my 2K F seat, but at least I'll have something different from a dreamtime seat trans tasman in J for a change.

I still don't get my 2K F seat, but at least I'll have something different from a dreamtime seat trans tasman in J for a change.
Good result in the end. I can only assume if they did turn QF26 around as QF25 that it was not needed in SYD for any maintenance, which is one reason the flight continues to SYD and QF25 starts in SYD.

If they knew they were going to do that earlier in the day, they may have considered exchanging QF25 SYD-BNE and the return QF26 BNE-SYD with something smaller and hence less expensive to cover the usually lightly loaded domestic segments - say a 767 or A330. But that may have caused more problems with seat allocations and negated any benefits.

I can confirm that VH-OEJ operated one of the flight into LAX today. She was stitting along side three oher QF 744's on the ground when I arrived on CX this afternoon.

AKL had fog earlier today, which may have started off the shuffle around.

QF25 now 30 mins late due to "operational Requirements". What really happened is the crew was not ready.

I went to the gate early to board ASAP and as is my habit waited right at the gate listening to the agents' converstions. There was a TT bus sized cluster of crew at gt80 outside the now arrived QF26 (VH-OJK). I guess it was two full crews, FA's & FC's; too may with wings on their shirts for one 747 these days. They appeared to be having a pow-wow :) .

After the "operational" announcement I headed back from gt83 and the crew were only then filtering down.

(FWIW QF175/176 is being operated by VH-OJH today.)

Fog has lifted in AKL but still chaos - plenty of flights hours late and some cancellations.

QF25 due to arrive 40 minutes late.

Thanks Guys, there was additional issues after boarding and we did not depart until about 12:30. The boarding was "manual" as the "computers were down" and somehow two PAX were missed, took a while to sort out. What did people do before we had computers?

The front cabin service was excellent, before and after takeoff. :p

Landed an hour late, met Kiwi Flyer airside for a few minutes as our paths crossed (funny about that with flyertalkers :) ).

OMG, :eek: this is turning into a mini trip report... hmm, that's a thought.

What did people do before we had computers?

It didn't take quite so long to manually board a Super Connie as it takes to board a 744 :p .