SFO777

My long, long day with not so good Qantas

It’s been 5 years since my last Qantas experience. But a cheap Auckland-LAX-London AA codeshare First Class fare brought me back. AKL-SYD on the continuation of QF 4 from JFK, SYD-LAX in Qantas First, then LAX-LHR in BA First next March. Apart from the price, I wanted to try the newly refurbished A380, or at least that was the plan before I discovered that SYD-LAX today was a worn-out un-refurbished bird. And no Wifi of course.

The warm Aussie welcome at the AKL check-in counter



For some reason, Qantas has a First Class Lounge at AKL. Not sure why, because it's nothing special and actually the Business Class Lounge seemed much more inviting with more food options.

Qantas boarding doesn’t seem to have improved in my 5 year hiatus. Despite a 45 minute delay, AKL gate agents made no announcement or provided any explanation. I finally had enough and approached the counter. Even after I admonished them “why not tell people what’s going on?”, no announcement.



When boarding did start, not Business Class but Priority boarding which was easily half the plane if not more, with Business, Premium Economy, QF and OW elites. To make matters worse, gate agents started boarding a 2nd “Economy" line long before dozens of "Priority" passengers had boarded. But of course.



Unfriendly and clueless cabin crew, who scurried back and forth around the cabin taking meal orders in some kind of crazed priority system. Neither my Qantas First Class ticket nor One World Emerald status got me any priority and I was pretty much the last passenger to be offered my choice. “If you don’t like it, speak to management”. At least the cabin was modern compared the A380 relic that I would get to LAX. And despite it being 2023, Qantas has still not heard of Wifi.

So happy to see this is a plastic bottle blanket. I couldn't survive the flight thinking that I'm harming the environment by using a real blanket.



My quiche was dry and with the consistency of a hockey puck… almost broke the knife trying to cut the thing.



OK, this part was pretty cool. I nice view of Sydney on our approach.



The highlight of an otherwise mediocre Qantas day was arrival in SYD when I was met at the plane door by a Qantas First Team representative (thanks to Flyertalker ianassum for the tip), who escorted me thru transit security and then to the best part of Qantas, the SYD Qantas First Class Lounge. She had even proactively booked a spa appointment for me, which was most pleasant. Lounge food, drink and views are excellent although crowding seems an issue with all the One World Emeralds packing the place. All in all, a mostly pleasant two hour stay and a far cry from another round of worst-in-the-world First Class boarding. Love the retro departure board though.



Yikes, ya think a little furniture refresh is in order? LOL.



At around T-50, I headed down to lovely Gate 9. Welcome to what Qantas calls charitably calls “First Class”. Ridiculously disorganized gong show boarding. The masses assemble. As with gate agents at AKL, not a single announcement about... anything.



I worked my way as close to the front of the queue as possible.



As the masses converge.



After a whole lot of (chickens running around with their heads cut off) gate agents scurried around for quite some time, a seemingly senior scurrying-around gate agent yells out "Any First Class passengers?" Not on the PA, just at the top of his lungs. LOL. A few of us were able to navigate our way to the front of the queue.



Finally on board to peace and quiet, only to discover that this A380 has not been refurbished. Say what? Apparently not all A380s are refurbished and LAX is the loser.



Yep, this pretty much sums up the state of this rundown aircraft.



And 1980s IFE technology. Did I mention no Wifi? It's 2023 but who needs to be connected to the world on a 14 hour flight?



At least the champagne was lovely, and the food was quite good for the most part. Service was well meaning, but challenged and glacially paced at times with a full cabin of 14 pax.



Once in the air, no service for nearly an hour. With a weak selection of movies and old TV monitor, glad I brought my own movies.



Finally... drinks and today's amuse-bouche at 1:08pm nearly an hour after departure.



Then nearly another hour later, at 2:02pm, finally Showtime: Qantas "First Class" style.



The Roast tomato soup with Queensland spanner crab was very good.



As was the seared tuna with charred corn, tomato salsa and smoked paprika mayonnaise.



A half hour later, CopperTree Farms beef filet. This was very good. I had requested my beef as medium rare as possible and in remarkable bit of honesty, our flight attendant inadvertently came up with the perfect new Qantas marketing slogan… "I'll do my best, but we're not Emirates".



Nearly an hour later, dessert.



And then bedtime. Credit where credit is due. The best part of the flight was the bed which was very comfortable and made the 14 hour flight mercifully shorter.



About 90 minutes from LAX, I tried breakfast. The Granola was inedible.



The Avocado Toast was so hard that it was nearly impossible to cut with a knife.



Glad to be in LA after a long, long day with Qantas. Sorry QF fanboys, but you still have one of the worst airlines in the world.

DownUnderFlyer

Thanks for the trip report and sad to hear that your best experience was a worn out seat. But we already guessed that from your November post. I guess it will be another 5 years before we'll see you on another QF flight again. Considering its one of the worst airlines in the world.

SFO777

Thanks DownUnderFlyer. LOL on the "another 5 years" but probably true.

Koru Flyer

Does anyone know why QF is glacially slow with service - as a serious question. They manage to get MEL/SYD/BNE all done and dusted in the time it takes then to even think about a first drinks service in J and F in long haul. Trans Tasman are also fast which leaves you with nothing to do for the next 2.5 hours. I watched a couple of reviews of the AY wetlease which uses AY staff, planes but QF service standards - and the comments were also that it was universally painfully slow to get going. Is there just a ton of fluffing around? Bad galley management? is there a timer that they need to adhere to, thoughts that people have eaten in lounge so lets wait a bit? - what exactly is it?

SW7London

Thank you SFO777 for another excellent trip report! Out of interest was the F cabin full ?

I wonder why QF F service is so slow, maybe a post covid thing as I cant remember this being the case pre 2020. Do they still have 3 FAs dedicated to First? (2 serving + 1 in the galley?) On CX the used to have 3 FAs(for 6 seats) and they've now reduced it to two and the service is noticeably slower.

You lucked out getting the only unfurnished A380, although the poor boarding experience and business class food is a problem on any QF F flight!

og

For the last 20 years QF long haul J service has been slow. Expect an hour for the first drinks service. Expect another hour before any meals appear. Crew will say to push the call button but this usually gets a scowl or nothing at all. Of course the mates of the crew miraculously get a quick drink appearing out of nowhere. And as for the all night galley parties, its crew and their mates only invited.

SFO777

Thanks SW7London. The cabin was a full 14 pax. Not sure about staffing as I was in 1A and oblivious to the rest of the cabin, but at one point after a prolonged time without service, I did walk back to the galley and only saw our serving FA and a galley FA.

Thank you og. Interesting. I do recall a LAX-SYD J flight nearly 5 years ago. Others in the cabin were served a drink after take-off and I wasn't. Here are my notes from March 2019 which seem consistent with your experience.

"... We're now 45 minutes into the flight and there was no sign of drink service, at least for me. I looked over and saw drink service for the middle pair of seats in row 11 and the right pair of seats. I flagged down the same purser that told me about the IFE reboot and asked him about the lack of drink service. He replied that the crew was preparing service for the cabin. When I noted that others had drinks and indeed table cloths, he said that they had ordered Express supper selections so they get served first. Say what?? They get served their meal before drinks for the rest of the cabin? He did offer to bring me a drink straight away... and please close my shades as it will be morning in Sydney when we arrive..."

gravii

Unfortunately they've only heard of WiFi on domestic routes, the A380's used to have Wifi but it was deactivated after a few trials.

Not dedicated to LAX. The bird is rotated so luck of the draw unfortunately. They really should just refurb it.

Odd. I seem to recall 1980's IFE looking more like this. Panasonic eX2 is 2010's, HD and AVOD. Though maybe a little long in tooth these days.

JoeDTW

Thank you for another excellent report.

The last time you flew QF, you said the one area the crew lavished attention on, was ensuring that all the window shades were closed, even though the flight was at night.

Was the crew on this flight just as relentless at ensuring the window shades stayed closed?

Of course, the reason airline crew members (not just on QF) are so stubborn about making sure window shades stay closed, is because when shades are closed passengers are more likely to sleep, but if shades are open, passengers are more likely to be awake....and when passengers are awake, that means airline crew members actually have to do the jobs they are paid to do. If shades are closed, and passengers are asleep, then airline crew members get paid to spend the flight gossiping instead of working.

SFO777

Thanks very much JoeDTW. Probably a lot of merit on why crew likes closed shades. No crew comments this time about the window shades this flight, but then I proactively closed them shortly after take off so I could better view watch a movie and just kept them shut.

kmersh

SFO777, I am sorry to hear about your lackluster flight, my wife and I recently flew SYD-LAX and while the plane was also not refurbished, the service was good as was the food.

Qantas is not EK/SQ/NH/etc.. but they are leaps and bounds better than UA which my wife and I most accustomed to and now my wife wants to know how we can avoid UA in the future.

108912

A really good trip report that pretty accurately reflects the state of things at Qantas.

I will just comment on a few

Un-refurbished A380
Urgghhh so unlucky. There is ONE un-refurbished A380 that was hurried back from the Mojave desert to be able to increase the QF schedule. AFAIK the intention was for it to (mainly) be dedicated to the SYD-HKG route.

Slow in-flight service
An hour after take off is a long time for the first part of the service to arrive. Australia opened its borders quite late after COVID and as they had offered a HUGE amount of their experienced staff Voluntary Redundancy during COVID there was a massive skills shortfall during re-start. Qantas has recruited literally thousands of cabin crew post Covid and so those that were Business/First crew have moved up the ranks to Purser etc, those that were Economy crew have moved up to Business/First (hence the slow service) and nearly all crew you will find in economy are new.

No wifi.
Ridiculous and a joke. But, Qantas are well known for it. It is the sole reason why I will not fly QF on what would be a very convenient flight from LHR (my small company) to Perth (my home). As a small co owner I cannot be disconnected for 18hrs. I don't need to stream Netflix but I DO need to check into my emails from time to time so the 'we don't want to offer wifi on long haul flights until it is as fast and reliable as our domestic (4G) network' doesn't wash with me.

No updates.
This infuriates me with Qantas. And, is something they could change overnight and it would not cost them a penny. I avoid flying with BA but one thing I will give them credit for - they always update you about delays and its usually from the pilots. I was on a delayed BA flight just the other day (baggage loading issue) and the pilots were updating us every ten minutes.

At QANTAS wtaf? The first time you hear from the pilots is after take off when the seat belt sign is switched off and you're trying to sleep. Why do they never speak to passengers over the intercom on the ground, especially in delay situations?

SYD F lounge.
Like you say one of the best features of Qantas First Class.

We aren't Emirates
No, they are not. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I won't start a whole 'are they/are they not' government subsidised debate but the reality is they operate in a completely different competitive environment. They are government owned and more about keeping Dubai connected and promoting the country worldwide than making money and investing or starting new routes cautiously. I definitely prefer the Qantas crews versus Emirates crews who I find robotic.

jlemon

Perhaps they took a page out of the British Airways boarding process playbook used at London Heathrow.....

Before our recent flight to Austin in BA Club World, exactly one announcement was made via the PA: "There will be a brief 40 minute delay concerning our departure today." Just over an hour later we finally began boarding after the gate agent informed the masses that business class was ready to board. And he did not use the PA system, he just kinda yelled at us. We did survive the stampede to get on board. And once we were on board and seated, an additional delay ensued with no explanation whatsoever. So we arrived into Austin nearly two hours late which resulted in a missed connection to an AA flight. Of course, no apology from the BA crew for the late arrival into AUS.

And thanks again for yet another great trip report!

lamphs

Sad to see this. I had a QF F 380 flight in 2015 or so, SYD DXB LHR. It was quite good. IIRC, there were just a few of us in F. I was dotted on constantly and one of the cute FAs and I had a long discussion about traveling and she had given me a few ideas about an upcoming trip to Poland (her home). The drinks and food were quite good. At that time, I didn't care about Internet service as on vacation I am fairly fortunate to be able to stay disconnected (I recognize that is not an option for everyone). I was going to look for another either cheap F ticket or an award flight on QF during 2024. Maybe I should wait?

SFO777

The most striking thing about this pic is how plush and luxuriously thick those 747 Economy seats look. Granted a little tight on the leg room, but today's domestic First/Business Class seats are nowhere near that plush.