Hi all,
I have had a REALLY fortunate and fabulous time with QANTAS these past two weeks - from my personal 767 farewell flights which worked out to enoy the plane twice, to the REAL Final 767 flight (Thank you once again Red Roo for the totally unexpected invitation!) and today managing at the next-to last minute to land on EBV and by sheer luck - TWICE and in J (thank you to the P1 team for small help with that even though in the end I think they need not have been involved given the evening flight change lol, but I digress.
I will try and add some photos below and hope they give an idea of the aircraft configuration.
My thoughts are that this is an EXCELLENT product for transcon and probably for trips to Asia. Is it as good as the CX J seat? It's a little different and both have slight advantages in different areas to the other, but I would rate it right up there, at least from 2 hours of sitting in it. There are many wonderful small thoughtful features (or bigger ones, such as the ample shelf space for books, tablets etc), the mirror inbult into the cover for the handset, hand hold that won't have you annoying anyone else when you need to get up and grab someone, little lights and accents, DND light, lots of controls for the seat, and so on (AusBT has a really fantastic review online now that says it all much better than me).
Some notes on the config.. personally I like the seats closest to the window, but I recognise others will prefer those on the aisle, but I found my elbow slipped into the aisle which could get painful for multiple people I also felt the "near window" seat was a little more private than the one right on the aisle, but I also feel an aisle seat will work better for couples travelling, as even with the stagger you could see/hand stuff between and have a quiet word with a companion flyer across the aisle which appears to me a little less distance than between the two cente seats, though the AusBT review suggests the midle section can be lowered somewhat, so I'm a bit confused on that point tbh.
The crews on both flights I took (418 MEL-SYD then 435 SYD-MEL - which did not show up on EF at all yet I asked at the lounge if I could get on an earlier flight to MEL since I'd originally got the 4pm 447 back, and they offered the 1pm with J, and I said what 1pm? LOL EF showed a 73h extra QF499 and then 2pm, so I think the flight rejig affected things and 435 did not quite get out there fully lol. Anyway the lounge angels were brilliant to preserve my upgrade and give me a window and yes I was very happily surprised to see it was EBV returning to Melbourne, so I had a second bite of the cherry as it were)... anyway the crews all seemed pleased with the new config, but quite clueless and getting to know it as much as we were. There were a couple of instances where belts disappeared under the seat somehow which caused a bit of concern but the CSM figured out the trick and showed the others.. this may be a small design issue to work on. IFE is a brand new setup, and the screen appears to have a webcam in it (!??!) not sure what that is for or about but anyway it worked OK except on my 2nd leg it crashed out totally lol so some work there too I guess.
The suite goes very very lie flat and low and seems comfortable in most positions.. the table is a smart design and actually allows you to use it and be reclined a fair bit to eat or whatever. hooray!
Anyway enough chatter from me.. some pictures.... Again great product and very impressed and so glad I got to try it out on a crazy hot weather whim!!!
Please accept my apologies... I am having image problems
images come up blurry and sideways grrr so sorry