Best OW Route London/Australia Rtn in Economy
 

I need to spend 2 days on business in Sydney (dates flexible), travelling Economy. Ignoring TP and Avios opportunities, which is the best OW route for this trip that could help reduce the fatigue? I assume choice of aircraft (and airline?) will make a difference, as will flight timings and the connecting city (I don't have time for a stop-over en route). I may do an Avios upgrade, but your collective thoughts on the standard economy options would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks Swampz, appreciate the advice. ^

Depending on your schedule in Oz, if you are going for business I would seriously consider upgrading yourself to premium economy at least on the way out to try to get a bit of rest and some extra legroom.

But back to topic, as Qantas goes A380 all the way it probably is a better choice.

I would say the BA A380 to Hong Kong, overnight there, and then the day time flight to SYD on Cathay (which has BA codeshare BA4135). Even better if you can do two nights. In between would be BA A380 to HKG, overnight and then the Qantas A380 to SYD, which is overnight. The trick to the BA+Cathay service is that you will feel quite tired when you get to HKG and will find it easy to have a good sleep there, but going to sleep fairly early in the HKG evening. Then when you get to SYD in the evening (arrival is around 21:00 hrs), you can go straight to your hotel - none of this messing around with room availability with morning arrivals - and catch up on the rest of your sleep.

I'd go Qantas too. Have only tried their 380 Y product for one trip but was pretty impressed with it.

Not caring about Avios or TPs: For jet lag, I much prefer the afternoon arrivals going, so via the middle east. Or if you can stop in HKG then the day flight. But the middle east carriers are worse for rest / jeg lag on the way back because you have the 6-8 hour flight into a mid morning arrival in London (so you are transferring in the middle of the night UK time). I never managed to stay awake the whole day after a 5 am arrival, it's brutal, so you can't aim to work that day, so you might as well take the stop over in HKG.

The Chinese operators are poor in economy. I prefer the QF or QR (or Etihad, Cathay or Emirates) seats to BA. You'll pay for exit row seats unless Gold, so take that into account. As a Silver, I had a spare seat saved next to me on both QF and QR. Never on BA. However, if you can definitely upgrade with Avios to WT+ then I would choose BA and change aircraft / flight number at SIN.

Not quite the same, but a few years ago I went to AKL in Y. Lunchtime Thai flight LHR-BKK 1150-0615, Managed maybe 3-4 hours sleep, then spent the day in Bangkok, got a day room, time by the pool. Then caught the evening BKK-AKL 1845-1205, where I slept solidly as I was exhausted....no jet lag at all in NZ!

So following those sorts of times, i'd say maybe a lunchtime LHR/LGW-HKG on CX 252 1120-0700 (or the LGW flight on the nicer A350 CX 354 1120-0655) - try not to sleep too much, easy with those timings. Then spend the day in HK, do some activities, walk up the Peak, then take CX 111 1900-0725. You should sleep well, and arrive ready to go in SYD.

If you can't afford the time to spend the day in HK, there's a daytime CX 0840-2050 flight. If you take that, really try and stay awake, with minimal napping. By the time you get to your Sydney hotel, you'll crash and sleep properly at the right time.

Coming home, CX have a decent choice, either depart around 3pm, arrive London 6am, or leave SYD 10pm, arrive London 3pm. I prefer long daytime flights so would go for the latter, but the former would be most people's choice, and mirrors BA and QF timings.

CX lounges are fab too. In was just in the new Deck lounge in HKG recently which I really liked.

In a similar situation to OP, I have been looking at selecting airlines with Y seats for hubby to Sydney next month - he has to make a number of trips back home this year to sort out his mother's estate. Last month he had to fly on very short notice when we were advised of his mother's death. He flew with CX (all flights B777) as their fares were the cheapest compared to BA and QF, and it was still over £1,100 (cf BA £1,500 and QF £1,300). LHR-HKG flight was 3-3-3 in Y so he chose an aisle seat (fortunately no one sat in the middle). HKG-SYD flight was 3-4-3 (densified so the seats were narrow, thin and extremely uncomfortable - and someone sat next to him, he did not have a wink of sleep the entire night flight. As soon as he got home he slept for 5 hours straight). SYD-HKG flight was 3-4-3 again and luckily no one sat next to him. HKG-LHR was 3-3-3 and the flight was full with not many empty seats in Y and someone sat next to him.
As discussed in this thread, hubby would be better off with one night flight and one day flight, instead of two night flights. However, he does not have spare days to stopover in SIN or HKG (no spare annual leave days) so it has been tough on his body.
Again, CX has the cheapest Y fares for hubby's dates next month, compared to QF, BA and QR. Hubby is silver with BA and (lifetime) gold with QF.
Qs: I have checked out Y seat maps for BA, QF and QR flights - all have 3-4-3 in Y but the planes are A380. People in this thread seemed to prefer QF seats. Are the Y seats on A380 not as tight as the ones on CX B777? Is the air on A380 is better than on B777? TIA.

Does anyone have experience of how often WT+ UuA opens up on this route? I have none, but I'm guessing it's not very likely.

3-4-3 on an A380 is the standard layout, and 3-3-3 on a B777. Airlines can however squeeze in an extra column of seats on both, making 3-5-3 on the A380 (thankfully no one has done this yet), and 3-4-3 on the B777 (which was the exception, but now seems to be the rule).

So 3-4-3 on the A380 is roughly the same as 3-3-3 on the B777.

Similarly, 2-4-2 is normal on the A330/340, but some airlines squeeze 3-3-3 in. The A350 standard layout is 3-3-3, but 3-4-3 is used by some carriers (like French Bee) and should be avoided if possible.

My top tip for this route is to have a new baby so that 18 hours each way passed out on the flight seems like luxury.