Originally Posted by FliesWay2Much
I agree 100% about QF domestic. We flew them from SYD to Darwin through Brisbane. Meals on both legs and they even passed out newspapers in coach. Coming back, I found out something about their fare structure. We had a two-hour lay-over in Brisbane while watching flights leave for SYD every 30 minutes. I asked a customer service rep if we could get on an earlier flight. (We had checked luggage so I already knew the answer.) He told me that the connecting flight you get is related to the fare one pays. If we had paid a higher fare, we would have had only a 30-minute wait. That's not clear on their web site. Since we were on vacation, the additional wait didn't bother me, but it was something to file away for the future. Also, it was completely impossible to book award travel using AA miles -- I even looked a year out just for fun.
The domestic fare structure is similar to Southwest in some respects. All tickets (Qantas CityFlyer at least) are priced by one-way segments and there are about five different fare classes starting at the deep discounted red-e-deal to full economy.
With respect to service, last week I got an op-up from PER-MEL on QF to Business. There is only Economy and Business Class on Qantas domestic, but the level of service for their J class is much better than US domestic FC.
RE: Secondary in SYD. I responded yes that I had a lighter on me and they ended up searching my carry-on, even after I handed the lighter over. IIRC they also did a wanding as well.
Overall it's a pleasure to fly domesticly in Austalia - hassle free when it comes to security and good service (just stay clear of Virgin Blue and JetStar - the two LLC's - JetStar is owned by Qantas but they try to keep it seperate).
Cheers!
SDF_Traveler