QF22 NRT-SYD J catering downgrade - permanent? (vs JQ)
 

It appears that Qantas has stopped serving dinner on QF22 from NRT to SYD.

The flight is at dinner time (1950 departure), and other operators on similar routes and time serve a full dinner, so why have Qantas decided that a very small bowl of soup noodles with not much else is enough in J? (It's not even a hearty bowl of noodles - it was more like a pretty plain soup with token amount of noodles.)

What baffles me in particular is that JQ "Business" catering is now far, far superior from NRT than on QF. You get a proper dinner, including an option for a steak etc.

I suppose QF won't be cannibalised by JQ in J due to lack of beds on JQ "Business", as I myself have avoided overnight JQ flights. But the difference in catering is stark. Despite not flying JQ overnight, I know the JQ catering as the return flight menu is printed on the same menu for the day flight to Tokyo, which I sometimes use.

JL used to do a mildly irritating thing called the "bistro menu" in J on this route where they served a relatively basic dinner with the entree and the main delivered on a tray at the same time, meaning by the time you have your main course it's no longer hot. However, they have had a big turnaround in catering on the route and they now do a "full dinner" (including a pretty fancy Japanese food), so to speak.

Although I have some issues with JL such as hot cabin at times, it is tempting me more towards flying JL than QF because I do not really feel like paying through the nose only to be given a small of bowl of noodles, and both beds are as uncomfortable as the other (sadly).

I'm sorry Qantas, I'm not on a diet, and I do not want to be forced onto a calorie-restricted diet. I would like an option to have a proper dinner on board if I am flying at a proper dinner time. Not a tiny little snack. Even European short haul carriers serve a hot meal on a longer flight in the evening. This is a long haul flight for which Qantas charge pretty handsomely.

It's one thing if they then served a hearty breakfast but it was just a very light "continental" type of breakfast.

Anyway, is Qantas running a trial with reduced catering on this route, or is is permanent?

Crazy stuff. I flew a red eye out Tokyo on SQ last week in business and they managed to serve a very hearty full meal and have it cleared within the hour of take off still allowing plenty of sleep time. Same on TG out of MEL the other day on the 11:30pm departure.

Oh they also offer a full breakfast if you wish but I turned down to continue sleeping, much better than any 'cafe' breakfast/

Do you have the actual menu.

Even on the much later departing SIN services (eg QF6 which departs at 2300) there are usually some more substantive options offered in the Snack section.

While myself (and I suspect most) would eat at the airport/ in the lounge (noting that 8.30pm at NRT is 9.30pm in SYD) and then sleep most of the flight,

QF certainly do need to provide for those who are operating in different time zones or say transiting to South America and may want to stay awake and eat.

I hope not as I'm flying SYD-NRT later in the year (PE but hoping to upgrade to J on points)!

This wasn't the experience I had 6 months ago.
I would be quite upset if it is now the case.

The QF NRT lounge can get overcrowded with QF + JQ pax. I would use JL lounge next visit.

This was not the experience I had 6 months ago either, hence "Is this permanent?" reaction. Even in PE they were serving decent food about 6 months ago, let alone in J.

I forgot to bring the menu back so I cannot post the precise details, but it certainly was a rather nasty surprise.

I remember thinking they were starters and they were "AND" gate rather than "OR" gate (common on Asia routes to get multiple small dishes on various carriers) because they seemed so surprisingly like a snack.

By the way, I am not sure if the menu had been downgraded SYD-NRT or if it is just NRT-SYD.

I sincerely hope it was a temporary thing, but since the menu was properly printed rather than being temporary looking, I fear it might be permanent.

They don't make it obvious but you can order more than one 'plate'.

Did you try the Q-Eats pre-oder?

Part of AJ's Jetstar master plan... J travellers will stay away from QF due to the "enhancements", AJ will say the route isn't fit for QFi as a full service carrier due to lack of premium customers, and they'll switch the remaining flight over to Jetstar :)

Hey LTN Phobia, was there any other choices on the menu? Surely the noodles wasn't the only big plate available?

serfty - I find the FAs push back when I try to get more than one plate, saying "there isn't enough to go around", or "I'll see what's leftover at the end" and then never seeing them again. I don't know if the catering is lightly loaded or if they'd prefer to keep some meals for themselves.

I suspect the latter - but happy to be proved wrong. I have seen things in the J galley that have never made it into the cabin - be it dinner or breakfast - eg trays of sliced fresh fruit.

To be fair, those items might have been specifically staff meals.

Possibly, but the menu identified sliced fresh fruit - but it wasn't offered.

It was not even a big plate. It was very small, and there was hardly anything in it other than noodles.

My seat neighbour ordered something else and it was equally small and plain, although I cannot remember what it was. Basically, all selections were just small snacks. That is what surprised me - there was basically nothing substantial to eat. Those who had not had dinner (since the flight departed at 1950, you would expect to be served dinner) will have had a nasty surprise. Luckily I had a bit to eat at the JL lounge, so I was not left very hungry, mainly just intrigued.

As someone mentioned above - it's all part of Joyce's master plan to downsize QFi as much as possible (possibly even out of existence) and force all on to JQ. He is an LCC guru after all and doesn't care a fig about QF.

QF22 is now considered a 'supper flight' - it a very similar menu with equally small serves for the QF West bound transpacific flights (QF12, QF8 etc.) - you really need to eat before boarding.

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If QF really wants to do supper flights then they should do them properly - advertise it as a sleeper flight, lights out immediately, small snack if wanted or hot choc & cookies. No wake up for stupid cafe breakfast 2 hours out, just ditch breakfast altogether and build an arrivals lounge where one can shower and get a decent breakfast. ie: like BA do it, where it works well.

I've brought this up at a AFF QFF Neil Perry event before when they said SIN is a sleeper style flight (as an excuse for the food) and I said do it like BA and give us an arrivals lounge then. QF people looked bewildered by that.

The 2 hr wake up for a light breakfast has turned me away from QF flights from Asia. Others (CX and TG) can do it 90 min prior and then they (the crew) have time to hang around afterwards before approach.

On the Thai flights I have even slept through breakfast, woke up less than 60 minutes before landing and they have brought the full meal out to me which I have eaten and cleaned up with 30 minutes to go before touch down.

I would love to know if any of this stuff actually has an effect on bookings though. On FF sites all of this gets debated frequently, but unless it is having a negative affect on bookings Qantas will keep reducing the service offered.

Without advertising, they actually try to do this these days.

On QF16 last month the FA's seemed to be in a rush to serve PAX and encourage them to sleep. Since I like to spend at least three hours awake on such flights before going to sleep roughly 9pm-10pm Melbourne/Sydney time this does not suit me at all.

That sounds terrible. Unless something was advertised as sleeper service, I wouldn't expect a 1950 departure to not be serving dinner.

I'm not a fan of the whole large plate small plate thing either. Just serve a full meal, I'm big enough to decide when I've had enough or if I only want a main, entree, dessert, cheese etc.

With these 'supper' services, the "plates" are not designated "large" or "small".

They are just basically small!

With Q-Eats, on designated "Lunch/Dinner" flights you can choose two items on-line.

With these supper services, it's only one.

Oh yeah, I get that. I know Joyce is insistent of wringing every last buck out of QFi but how much does a meal cost in the grand scheme of the average J price ticket?

What's next? Picking up a David Jones Chrisco hamper in the lounge to eat on board.:rolleyes:

No chance of getting a meal in the J lounge. Only 4 pieces of sushi were bought out at a time. Well there was soup of some sort.

Don't go there. Go to the JL lounge where there is a little more to eat than that.

The thing with BA though is that even on a designated sleeper flight you can get far more food than you can on QF22! It's a much better service (and no slope bed).

I doubt SYD would ever have an arrivals lounge and I'm sort of lucky in that I almost invariably have a connecting flight so I head off to the domestic J lounge and have a shower and breakfast. But for those heading straight to work, this service QF is doing is really not a good thing (breakfast offering was something not even worth waking up for so I ignored the fact it existed and slept).

I am not sure about this route as it's a bit of a 'funny' one without a lot of competition.

QF 21 leaves SYD at night. JL 772 (the only direct competitor) leaves SYD in the morning.

Leaving SYD in the morning is probably a bad thing for business people except if they are travelling on a weekend. It's certainly bad for connecting passengers as it leaves too early to get there on the same day (it rules it out for me unless I have schedule flexibility to go to SYD the night before).

JQ 11/25 leaves OOL/CNS in the morning. You can potentially connect to it from elsewhere, e.g. SYD but the lack of beds is bad.

Both QF 22/JL 711 leave NRT within 10 min of each other. JQ 12/26 also leave NRT at night to OOL/CNS respectively, not far off the departure time of QF 22/ JL 711. Of course, the lack of beds on JQ is a major issue on that flight.

If there is a way of combining QF21 and JL771 and get a reasonable fare, it's a decent option (old JL J seat is a bit worse than the QF ones IMO but not that much worse). Otherwise, there isn't a good alternative as far as I'm concerned. So, perhaps not a lot of impact on the load (due to lack of alternatives) and it might be the reason why they target this flight with catering downgrade despite a relatively early departure.

Having just come off QF21 (SYD - NRT) this morning, I was quite surprised to get a full breakfast on this flight. Supper was served after take off, with a choice of 4 dishes (I declined as I had a 4 course meal in the First Lounge), and then the room service style menu for breakfast, served not at any set time, but when you woke up. Options were Cereal, Fruit and yoghurt, bakery items, juice or smoothie, and hot option. The two hot options were Scrambled eggs on brioche with bacon, beans and mushrooms, or pancakes with fruit (apologies, I don't remember exactly what). I have to admit, I was expecting the dreaded café style breakfast.
I am hoping this is an across the board improvement on Asian routes, but will have to wait and see. Returning NRT - SYD on Thursday night, then SYD - BKK return in July.

They used to have a Jap style breakfast for nrt-SYD with miso soup and onigiri

Actually I do believe there was a Japanese breakfast option as well. Do not recall what it was, but more substantial than miso soup and onigiri.

I would hope so as the folded paper swan always gets too soggy when put in the miso soup

Are you reading origami or onigiri?:confused:

I think it might be direction-dependent. I recall seeing miso soup and onigiri for NRT-SYD but something more substantial in the other direction.

I don't know if SYD-NRT catering has been downgraded or not (it sounds like the evening meal has indeed been downgraded, based on what was reported in this thread, although breakfast seems to have remained intact, as it always was), although NRT-SYD that I flew definitely had the major catering downgrade. I do not think there was even a room service-style breakfast.

Hey LTN Phobia, did you mention anything on board or afterwards? I know you're not the complaining type, but if no one says anything then it's unlikely to change. What tends to get more of a reaction is if you complain to Neil Perry (twitter/insta/fb), I know he gets unhappy when QF dumb down his food by stripping the budget, and he is more likely to try and improve it than QF are.

I did express my surprise to the cabin crew member but I did not present it as a complaint because there was nothing they could do about it and I did not want to embarrass them either.

I suppose it's not so much about the food quality but the type/quantity of food on offer, NP may not be able to have much influence?

Has anyone flew NRT-SYD recently ?
Is the catering still of a substandard ?

I'm on QF22 in a month.

What I find perplexing is that;
- On this flight, Y get a choice of Hot Western or Hot Japanese breakfast
- In J from PVG (similar flight length), the flight has the full breakfast offering

.......so why does QF offer a lesser service in J on QF22? It is bizarre.

Yes - my worst QF food experience unfortunately, but I was in Y.

I still cannot get over the fact that JQ stuff your face with a lot of food in *class (I know it's an old name but I just cannot bring myself to calling it Business) between NRT and Australia, yet QF J to SYD, which cost a lot more and around the same departure time as JQ OOL or CNS, feed you a tiny amount of food.

I suppose QF J is a bed class and JQ *class is eating class (the food isn't terrible either, although not wonderful).

Oh, you've never been in J on QF24 from Bangkok to Sydney then...