melmike

Syd-Auckland on Emirates business - excellent as always. Great seats, service, food. Love the bar.
Auckland-Syd on Qantas business - Oh, Jetconnect aircraft, thanks very much.
I very much resent paying the same business class price for an excellent seat on Emirates and a seat on "Qantas" that is from the 1990s.

SYDSiderFlyer

What kind of business class seat were you expecting from QF? Some research would of revealed what seat you'd get on the hop over the ditch. I don't think QF can compete to EK A380. It's not a fair comparasion. Sorry you had crappy seats :-(

og

From my experience, the seats on the JetConnect 738s across the Tasman were installed around 5 yrs ago (give or take). Certainly not the 1990s. I have found the crews outstanding. Anybody who checks the aircraft type prior to travel would realise that if you are on a 738, you will not have 60" seat pitch with flat bed seats.

Notwithstanding, I do not find these seats very comfortable but am grateful that they have fabric covering rather than leather (of fake leather).

sxc

If the fares are the same I think it's a fair comparison.

Globaliser

Despite the reasons underlying EK's ability to dump fly long-haul business class seats between these cities?

A glass half full person might be thankful that the current arrangements allow him, if he chooses, to fly something that's miles ahead of what one would normally expect on a flight of this type, rather than whingeing about basically getting what he paid for when flying in the other direction.

Top of climb

Then don't fly QF across the Tasman. Fly EK.

And if your schedules don't permit you to fly EK, then you have your answer why QF is able to charge the same price as EK for an inferior product.

Dave Noble

Indeed. If wanting/able to go in the morning to AKL/CHC or evening from AKL/CHC , then I would say that Emirates offers the best product by a long way and is what I would book

If , however, wanting a departure outside of those times then have to choose between carriers available and accept that the product will be lesser

It is a reasonable to compare between say

EK412 at 0845 A380
NZ102 at 0945 B787
LA800 at 0930 A343 and
QF143 at 0950 B737

given that they all depart within a 1 hour timespan and I would anyone choosing Qantas in business class at that time of day is spending a lot on the worst product, yet I bet that Qantas still gets people purchasing tickets and has no incentive to improve its offering

og

The QF code share on LA metal is the sweet spot for me. It gets the QF SCs and points (if crediting to QF FF) and gets the fantastic LA cabin crew.

Platy

There is quite a choice of excellent business class product on Australia-NZ routes as Dave Noble has pointed out, this is not restricted to EK - (Air NZ 787, 777-200, 777-300, LAN A340, EK B777 and A380).

So why take the QF 737 standard as the "norm", unless slave to QF-centric bias?

The OP makes an observation regarding consistency of product - perhaps an issue of broader relevance as QF seeks to prop up its collapsing international network with various codeshare arrangements, whilst maintaining full service level pricing (including putting premium pax onto JQ flights).

Consumer law makes reference to the standard of product/service for the price paid, so it is reasonable for a customer to have an expectation based on price perhaps rendering the "whinger" tag as misplaced.

Not saying that QF has done anything wrong or the OP has a consumer law case or anything like that, just that price paid is a reasonable point of reference with which to make comparisons.

As others have pointed out, the best course of action is to ensure travel is booked on one of the better products on offer (assuming routes are serviced at suitable schedules for the individual traveller) since there is much greater value for the price paid.

In terms of QF-EK, aren't the fares agreed between the two airlines anyway, and the minimum capacity determined by the regulators?

m0hamed

With PH to open in AKL we were just discussing a NZ vacation. QF wasn't even considered as an option, we'll either do LA or EK.

eminere

Another fifth freedom flight between SYD and AKL is the CI51 service on MWTS.

BadgerBoi

Sweet! I'd love to try LA.

edy4eva

Not really. QF use their PE hard product as J domestically/trans Tasman. Given that the are few carriers on the SYD-AKL route with the worst among them LA having significantly better seats -discounting NZ, QF should at least try and address this area. Unless what they regard as competition is NZ.

Top of climb

Which they probably do. They have the alliance with EK trans-Tasman and I would be surprised if LA was on many people's radar outside FT (despite being considerably cheaper in J and once the 787 comes on stream, with a considerably better hard product).

og

I would be most surprised if the LA 787 hard product was considerably better than the current 343 hard product.