Sydney aircraft change for summer 23? (Club Suites)
 

I'm due to fly to Sydney in mid April. As of now, it is still showing 787-9 despite the winter season being upgraded to Club Suite 777. Anyone know if this is it or whether we're still waiting for finalised equipment for the summer?

Given it is February and the NH Summer timetable still shows the B789 servicing the route - I doubt BA will change. I think the limited number of B77W aircraft can be deployed elsewhere more profitably during the summer timetable and it is a route that uses a lot of aircraft given the distance.

Pilot37

I doubt there’ll be a change now, it would’ve happened as the summer schedule was firming up in late autumn. I’d expect to fly on a 789.

The higher capacity 77Ws can be more profitably used elsewhere during the northern summer, and are good for Australia in our winter when there’s less need for them elsewhere. I doubt very much the most aircraft-intensive schedule BA has would change with less than two months’ notice.

I’ve just surprisingly found 4 Avios seats to Sydney in August and see that the flights are showing as old CW on the 789 as well.

Anyone know of any good ex EU fares to Sydney for August? I may ditch the Avios seats and CW if there are any reasonably priced options.

Generally OSL used to have best SYD pricing on BA - Have a look if that still works for you

Haven't seen good exEU deals recently but do remember you can use Avios on QR to fly their business class to Australia for 180k Avios return. The DOH-MEL route seems to benefit from Qsuite if you’re not dead set on SYD as the gateway.

Very much agree. Also BNE - which gets the Qsuite too - additional availability when you factor MEL, ADL, PER, SYD, BNE

We have managed to grab two Club seats to Sydney in January. Currently showing as 787, with the old Club World seating.

Yeah, we managed to book EDI-DOH-MEL one way for next January for 180k Avios and a hair under £750 - it wasn’t that hard to find the seats either. BA want 145k Avios and £750 one way off peak for NCL-LHR-SIN-SYD with a companion voucher. I think it’s a no brainer to pay an extra 35k Avios to fly a vastly superior airline and hard product.

Tried booking BA as a second option with a CV but was beaten at the UK midnight rush - apparently we needed to book in 35 seconds instead of 36 seconds :)

Might be sort of relevant but the LHR-MLE that has been the CS 777 for the last couple of years has now reverted for next winter to 787 with the old CW. So a bunch of the 777s (STBP, H, N, O and others) are going to be doing different routes. Wonder where they'll end up servicing

Quite a reduction in Club seats from a B77W (76) to a B789 (42) - the other cabins are pretty much the same. MLE obviously was a huge destination during Covid - so I wonder are they seeing the numbers drop a little as the rest of the World is now open for business and sizing the aircraft accordingly?

Pilot37

They only ever had 4 flights a week to MLE pre-covid and then it changed to daily so like you I suspected that might mean a drop in numbers. But I flew back in from MLE last weekend and both outbound and return the aircraft was full throughout. Maybe BA suspect Virgin now also going direct will dilute demand further. Cash fare is well over £12k in CW so I reckon I'd be a bit grumpy at being punted into the lesser hard product if I'd paid that (I didn't, mine was a CV booking)

Shame tho. Will price up Avios on QR

There might not be much slack in the fleet if they make a push to get the remaining 77Ws done over the winter.

Is there any reliable way to check if Club Suite/77W's will return to SYD for W23? I've tried a dummy booking online but no aircraft type is shown before the payment page...

Cheers,