ianassum

Mr Joyce is hyper-focused on profits for shareholders
There is virtually no focus on
1. Consistency, fairness or loyalty for customers (the lounge delay is an example and the recent debacle at Dallas is another)
2. The food and wine product (Neil Perry, like all good things, works well in the lounge, poor inflight and must come to an end, although he is restricted in his budget (see 1. above) shows very poor product differentiation between J and F - the overnight LAX-SYD flight in F is basically J food tarted up (and not that well)
3. Investing a great deal in the cabin crew culture so that they deliver a consistent customer focused product, especially in Economy (as opposed to often doing the bare minimum)
The delay in the lounge opening also saves money

cmtlatitudes

Yeah, I've been wondering about this.

Dave Noble

How is there any lack of consistency. All the passengers in 1st class get access to the same facilities at the airport; seems quite fair. Airlines have never claimed to be loyal to passengers. Loyalty is a one way street - FF schemes are there to try and get passengers to be loyal like a dog to the airline

If the crew are doing the minimum that they are required to do, then they are doing their job; anything beyond that is a bonus, but shouldbt be expected

DownUnderFlyer

[mod hat] Please stay on topic which are the QF lounges at LHR / LAX and not the QF service culture, the F in flight offering etc. [/mod hat]

djsflynn

Am now hearing August, but not a specific date.

cmtlatitudes

Thanks for update. Unfortunately, my flight is relatively early in August. I'm not overly optimistic at this point.

Oh well, there are still some unrelated things that need to fall into place with my trip anyway. I probably wouldn't cancel if it ends up being only lack of the lounge and likelihood of subpar F products on the flight. But it is a disappointment to have an A380 F seat without the total F 'experience'. So at least a small factor in a discretionary trip. I had one of the June A380 F LAX-MEL seats and ended up canceling that one.

Will wait until August 1st or so and make a final decision then. At worst, some lucky person will get my seat again as an upgrade.

Brandinho1

Wanted to share my key takeaways from my first visit to this lounge

- not too crowded as I was there late morning
- A La Carte dining is excellent. I had the salt and pepper squid. It took about 10 minutes.
- nice array of different seating options
​​​​​- nice view of a gate from the upstairs window if your into aircraft like me lol.

Bubba911

Am currently in LAX where the Lounge Agent told me that the Flounge is opening in 2 weeks time (8th). In the meantime, for those who have access I'd highly recommend the AA Flagship in T4. The walk is more than manageable and worth it. I am currently considering returning for the next 30 minutes! :-)

Always Flyin

I'm flying out on the 8th so that would be good news.

djsflynn

FWIW, Qantas will resume A380 flying to LAX this Friday July 29, albeit with only one A380 dedicated to the route (which arrived today from Abu Dhabi, see https://flightaware.com/live/flight/VHOQH) – which means just a handful of superjumbo services for the first week, in fact almost the first fortnight, at which point the schedule shows some days with successive A380s, indicating a second LAX-bound A380 should soon be winging its way back to Sydney.

I'd be curious what this means for the LAX F lounge – while I've also heard 8/8 mentioned for a reopening, and that day does currently show as an A380 for LAX-SYD, would the F lounge be closed on 'non-A380 days' when there's no first class flying and SYD-bound passenger numbers (and logically % of Platinums) are scaled back to 787 levels?

dw

On some levels I’d think it’d be even harder to staff a lounge that is only open a few days a week (in particular, for the kitchen staff that is needed for the F lounge), so I’m hoping that will not be the case.

18wheeler_vanrekt

Doubtful, remember this lounge is not just for the actual First Class pax (of which there are some from British Airways, Japan Airlines, and Air France iirc? plus Cathay... eventually), but also OneWorld Emerald passengers, so there will be eligible customers and plenty of them even without an A380 from Qantas on some given day

BD1959

Thanks for the review Brandinho.

Considering this is a combined Business/First offering by QF I was intrigued at the lack of a champagne on the drinks list.
Can anyone confirm that the number of available gins has not decreased since the reopening?

Regards,

BD

djsflynn

True and I hope that proves to be the case... QR extended the opening hours of its SIN T1 lounge for precisely this reason, with an early evening opening intended to capture first and business class flyers on Qantas, BA, Finnair etc.

serfty

There never has been Champagne on the Drinks list at LHR.

It is available (under the counter) to those who know the secret handshake or are Qantas CL/P1.

Mere Emerald generally don't get a look in.

Of course the AA Flagship lounge[when open], CX First lounge and (to a lesser extent) BA First lounge are available to Emerald flyers with a desire for those French Bubbles.