<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">When European carriers eliminated First Class from their domestic and intra-Europe flights, they went all the way down hill. Those seats -- the same as used by Australian carriers in their front cabins on domestic routes too -- say it all. True, catering is still better, but little else justifies the vast price difference between their various Y fares and J.</font>
I don't agree with comparison between Intra-Europe flight and Australian domestic flights. In Europe, I noticed that sometimes a flight have more J seats than Y seats (i.e.BA and SR). That doesn't mean they will sell all the seats in J but it just suggests that they are willing and capable of selling more than half of their seats in J class for an intra-Europe flight. About a year ago, I was on a BA flight from Madrid to London and BA was using a new aircraft (a 777 I think). It was booked on economy but there was only 6 seats per row and it was one of the best and most comfortable Y class seat that I have been on any carrier that I can recall. But I later notice that Club Europe had the exact same seat.
The Aussie domestic seats are comparable to AC depending on what type of aircrafts you are on. If you are on a 737 or 767-200, the seat pitch is about that of A320. But if you are on a 767-300 or 747, the J seats are only slightly inferior to CP's 767-300 in terms of seat pitch. Some of Qantas 767-300 (say mostly between Sydney and Cairns) have their personal video screens for each J seat. So I don't think you can compare intra-Europe J to domestic Australian J.