Seat Belt Length on JQ and ZL in Australia
 

Hi all:

I'm a relatively large man. I'm 136kg, 188cm tall, and have a waist size of 106cm. I live in the United States. While flying my normal airline of choice, United, I've never needed a seatbelt extender or to purchase an extra seat, even in coach.

My wife and I are planning a trip to Australia and I'm concerned about my size, particularly the seat belt length. While we intend on doing most of our intra-Australia flying in Business Class, a few of our flights don't offer business class. While we figured that we would just buy extra legroom seats, but they are all exit rows (front or over-the-wing) and the terms state that you can not use a seatbelt extender in these rows.

My thinking is that since Americans are generally larger than people of most other countries and am wondering if the seatbelts will be shorter because of this

While getting moved from an exit row with extra legroom wouldn't be that bad comfort wise, I have a few other concerns.

1. I would be highly annoyed if we paid for the extra legroom, got moved, and the airline only gave us a voucher, since we probably will never use the voucher.
2. One of the flights (the ZL flight) is on a turbo-prop. Since we would be in row 1, if we got moved, I'm assuming that the FA would swap us with the people in row 2, and row 2 doesn't have a window. Given that this will probably be my only chance ever to ride in a prop, I really don't want a window-less seat. While there are extra legroom seats farther back, they are also exit rows and are over the wing, obstructing the view out the window.

The flights in question are

1. JQ963 CNS-ADL on 12-Oct-19 with an A-320
2. ZL4771 ADL-KGC on 12-Oct-19 with a Saab 340
3. QF2143 KGC-ADL on 16-Oct-19 with a Dash-8 300

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with these and can compare them to american carriers, preferably UA.

Are my concerns valid, or am I worrying about nothing?

Note: While I plan on trying to loose a few KG before the trip, I've had trouble being successful before. I'm not giving up, but want to be prepared just in case.

Ok. So i’ve made some enquiries and jetstar don’t have a central record of how long the seatbelts are. Confirmed that if you need an extension you can’t sit in any of the extra leg room rows.

i’ve called in a favour and a mate is going to physically measure a seatbelt on Friday, if all goes well

my contact at Rex i’m just waiting to hear back from

WOW!!!!! I highly appreciate the efforts. I have a united flight in August, so I will measure the seat-belts on that and see how they compare.

Enjoy the trip - and good luck with the above plan also. ^

As for basic concepts, I think Nick Mitchell's Body Transformation Meal Plan Design is a pretty good intro to the topic.

From what I've seen, always better if you can get a professional personal trainer with these type of projects (muscle gain / fat loss).

QF2143 will also be on a turbo-prop.

do you need a back-up plan in case flight 1 is delayed and/or changed? I presume these cannot be on one ticket?

Intermittent fasting now has a lot of science behind it as a weight loss strategy.

Our backup plan will probably be the ZL flight the next morning. We would just rent a car and head over to the Ferry, but if our JQ flight is so late that we miss the ZL flight, then we will also miss the last Ferry.

I'll have to look at the prices of the ZL tickets to see if it's even worth booking a flexible / refundable ticket. From what I've gathered, it might be cheaper to just buy the cheapest fare and buy a new ticket if we mis-connect rather than buy a flexible ticket. I will definitely look into this.

Since you're asking if we have a backup plan, I'm wondering if you have any better ideas.

No suggestions - I am just wary of same-day travel on different tickets

I’m still just waiting to hear back, haven’t forgotten I promise 😉

I totally agree with you, but I'm not sure there is another option, other than loosing a day of our vacation. I guess I can see if we can overnight in ADL and take the early flight to KI the next morning, but I hesitate to add another day onto our vacation due to A. Employment leave, B. Added costs, and C. It's another day away from the kiddos. I might be able to make it work but that also depends on our original departure and arrival dates from the USA.

While we're on the subject, I normally agree that same day connections with two different carriers and two different tickets are not recommended. I was breaking this rule for a few reasons. Keep in mind that I normally fly in/out of Newark NJ, one of the three New York City airports, and most of my travels are to airports only slightly smaller than EWR.

1. ADL is an extremely small airport with one terminal. It looks like one can make it from one end of the terminal to the other in 20 minutes. That means with a 3 hour 5 minute connection time, we can arrive 90 minutes late and have plenty of time to claim our bags and re-check them, clear security again, and get to the far end of the terminal. Heck, this could probably done with an hour between flights if you hustle, right? (We are going to book 1A and 1B, so we'll be the first off.

2. I can't remember where, but someone else on FT told me that intra AU flights are much better at being on time than intra USA flights.

3. Since we're departing from CNS, another airport much smaller than I'm used to, I feel this will only highly reduce our chances of being delayed at take-off.

As mentioned above, our only other option is to drive to Cape Jervis and take the ferry, but if we miss the last flight of the day, we would also miss the last Ferry of the evening. That said, our backup plan would be to overnight in ADL and take the first REX flight of the day if there are seats available, or get a car and get the first ferry of the morning if we can't. I'm currently exploring the option of overnighting in ADL now as an additional day.