superflip

I know I can find out this information after the fact from The QANTAS Source.

But suppose I have a flight that is on e.g. a domestic Boeing 737, and I want to know e.g whether it will be on one of the aircraft with seatback IFE. How far in advance of actually getting on the plane can I find out this type of information?

moa999

From public sources at busy airports - as the plane pulls into the gate.
At less busy airports you can often guess what the incoming flight is and look at that.

Insiders (ie Qantas employees, airport employees) will have more insights, but things can always change last minute...

Also Qantas is currently refurbing its 738s (and 330s) - which will mean all seats will have Seatback IFE - some via built-in screens, others via iPad. 330 program will be finished mid-2016 and 737 program shortly after.

miamiflyer8

You can go to seatguru.com and enter in your flight nunber to see which aircraft will operate and what kind of entertainment options are available.

SuiteFlight

Seatguru isn't always reliable in that respect. I think the OP really wanted the certainty tail numbers can provide (barring last minute change). Sadly I think only the airline's operations department are this well informed prior to the a/c rolling into the gate. Pity that more airlines don't put up the tail numbers on the airport monitors at the gate like some American airlines do (really like that idea).

Hmm, I guess one way of getting advance warning would be if you know there are typical flight pairs (that a certain arriving flight/aircraft then goes on to be a certain departing flight from that airport) - you can then look up Qantas Source for the info on the arriving flight to figure out the departing (wouldn't work for all Qantas flights as some don't have routine pairs at all - changes from one day to another). I often do this to try and get advance notice of any impending delays, but will work just as well for hard confirm seat map checking.