"I have just completed a RTW business that included a flight from SYD to PER on one of their new A330. In addition to the very undesirable 2-3-2 configuration, the spacing between rows was the smallest I have ever had in busines, except for some intra Europe flights."

I take it that you have never flown on a US carrier in "1st" class domestically then. SYD-PER is a domestic flight and the A330 is a domestic aircraft. It has a lot less space than the QF international business class.

"Because the business seats reclined more than coach, when the person in front reclined, I had difficulty getting out of my seat. With their spacing QF should reduce the recline."

I would disagree. During a short domestic flight I am likely to want to get up a maximum of 2 times, often not at all. I would rather have the additional comfort for the 99% of the flight whilst I'm seated Having a slight difficulty getting up on an odd occurrence is a minor niggle

"When I talked to a flight attendant, he said that the plane was one of three new A330's and that a number of flyers had complained and that Qantas may have gone too far."

Gone too far in what? The seats are , as far as I can see, identical to others on domestic flights. I could not tell any difference in the seats between those on the A330 I took to MEL yesterday and those on the 763 I returned to SYD on last night

"Later in my trip I saw an Airbus advertisement for the A330, saying no center seats in business. So QF had to special configure theirs. "

As do all carriers. Airbus market the A330 as a longhaul international aircraft rather than a shorthaul domestic one.


"I also flew on a Cathay Pacific A330 with 2-2-2 and much more spacing between rows. The difference was striking."

Was that a domestic flight with CX? If not then hardly a fair comparison. The layout would likely be different if QF were using it for international. Compare for example, QFs 763s between those configured for international and those for domestic; the former have a 1-2-2 layout with a 50" pitch ( very favourable when compared to airlines such as AA which use 2-2-2 in J on a 763 ) whilst the latter are 2-2-2 with a seat pitch similar to that found on the 330.

"I was also very surprised to discover QF does not preassign business seats. That was a first for me."

A wonderful feature of QF. Meant that yesterday when I did SYD-MEL-HBA-MEL-HBA I was able to get my preference of seating in J on SYD-MEL and able to get the exit rows on MEL-HBA-MEL in Y ; plus they were nice enough to block off the seat next to me on the MEL-HBA-MEL flights. Excellent; long may it continue

"Also for seat preferences, AA EXP or Saphire is third priority behind Qantas Chairman and Platinum flyers. So I ended in the center 3."

The order of allocation preference goes, IIRC, QF Chairman's Lounge, QF WP, OW Emerald, QF SG, OW Sapphire, QF_PS , OW Ruby , Qantas Club member.

An AA EXP , being Emerald does come 3rd in that they are allocated seats subsequent to QFs own top tier members. AA Platinum , being Sapphire, is allocated after Qantas's own Gold members. Seems pretty reasonable and I doubt that oher OW carriers act any more favourably in reverse.

If you are an AA EXP and you ended up with a centre seat, then it suggests that maybe your seating preference was never carried across to Qantas since it is unlikely that there were that many Platinum members on the flight to just leave you with a centre seat.

Dave