ALL QF's 330's to get lay flat Business seating - Including Domestic

[Mrmaxwell]

CGK is still 4 days a week, operating Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun.

Google is saying otherwise...

 

[Dmac6345]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Disagree. The paying customer should not have to wait for 36 months while a carrier refurbs one plane at a time.

If I was paying LCC fares then I would have no issue whatsoever, but the fact is many of these asian routes are being priced at top dollar (e.g. MNL-SYD this week is $1670 = one way - what a joke!)


View attachment 52696

Crazy, and that price is still less then MEL-PER one way and v.v

 

[ajw373]

Google is saying otherwise...

View attachment 52697

QF5 is a one off stop en route to Singapore due to the end of the holiday season in Jakarta. Likewise a week or so ago QF82 stopped in on its way to Sydney, again a one off.

QF41 which is the normal CGK flight is still very much 4 times a week.

 

[ajw373]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Disagree. The paying customer should not have to wait for 36 months while a carrier refurbs one plane at a time.

So how do you propose they do that and still keep flying their schedule?

Also it is 2 a/c per at a time, as they are doing domestic too!

 

[davec]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

"Under-promise and over-deliver" is how most successful businesses (and individuals) work, not the other way around.

Launch when you have everything in place, and everyone getting the new product in the meantime thinks 'wow how good is this', rather than disappointing many expecting the offering that's been promised (despite the *)....

 

[moa999]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Disagree. The paying customer should not have to wait for 36 months while a carrier refurbs one plane at a time.

So what's your plan then???

Build 10 brand new hangers in Brisbane
Hire and train up 1000 new engineers
Have the suppliers work for 6m to produce 3000 seats
Ground the A330-300 fleet for 2 months, cancelling all flights to/from Asia

Repeat for the -200s
Fire all the engineers and knock down the now useless hangers.

It will also be under 24 months of actual Refurb. Time before that was spent on design, planning and certification (which as Virgin has found out can be time consuming)...

--
Will update my TT once I get my home Internet connection back

 

[DC3]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

So what's your plan then???

Build 10 brand new hangers in Brisbane
Hire and train up 1000 new engineers
Have the suppliers work for 6m to produce 3000 seats...............

................

That option looks a bit extreme.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

So what's your plan then???

What's my plan? Who cares...I am not the business with the highly paid executives - that is their job.

Their plan should be customer service and customer satisfaction first and everything else second. Not to refurb old plane but buy new ones, not to send new tech (787) to their LCC but send it to service their premium routes, and in turn customers who are paying top dollar for fares.

I am sure you are with me in saying I don't expect to be paying $1000+ for 8hr flights only to rock up and be greeted with a 10-13yr old aircraft with sub-standard IFE and dirty, hard seats combined with the slop passed as cabin food in a box.

Sorry if you think I am jaded but I've been reading about this A330 upgrade since 2013 and now that it directly affects me I see the whole thing as pretty average from a so-called national carrier. Every decision made over the last few years screams 'save money' and when that becomes core of the business then customer sat will fall.

 

[mannej]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

What's my plan? Who cares...I am not the business with the highly paid executives - that is their job.

Their plan should be customer service and customer satisfaction first and everything else second. Not to refurb old plane but buy new ones, not to send new tech (787) to their LCC but send it to service their premium routes, and in turn customers who are paying top dollar for fares.

I am sure you are with me in saying I don't expect to be paying $1000+ for 8hr flights only to rock up and be greeted with a 10-13yr old aircraft with sub-standard IFE and dirty, hard seats combined with the slop passed as cabin food in a box.

Sorry if you think I am jaded but I've been reading about this A330 upgrade since 2013 and now that it directly affects me I see the whole thing as pretty average from a so-called national carrier. Every decision made over the last few years screams 'save money' and when that becomes core of the business then customer sat will fall.

Whilst customer service and satisfaction is important, surely safety and the shareholders are of more importance?

 

[ajw373]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Not to refurb old plane but buy new ones,

Now back in the real world...

Lets say they buy new ones it would still take 2 years or so to introduce that many, which would mean product differences anyway. So no gain there.

Then there is the capital cost of selling off equipment that is 10 years old, which in the grand scheme of things is mid age for an aircraft. So added capital expenditure that would need to be added onto your fare.

As for the LCC jibe, you do realise even under the plan where Qantas were to take 787's, they were getting 788's in what is the same configuration Jetstar is using now and they were going to be operated domestically to replace 767's. Qantas changed that plan by introducing more 737's and brining back in the JQ A330's for domestic. Under the old plan the international A330's were to still be flying.

As for the business sense of it all, including the 787's to JQ, it is making Qantas money, so whilst you clearly do not agree with their strategy many quite clearly don't have the same level of concern and obvious cynicism.

 

[JohnPhelan]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

..... only to rock up and be greeted with a 10-13yr old aircraft with sub-standard IFE and dirty, hard seats combined with the slop passed as cabin food in a box.

Sorry if you think I am jaded.

No, "jaded" is not the word that springs to mind. Several do, but you would probably take offence.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 10-year-old aircraft that is well-maintained. Let me tell you, I would much prefer a 10-year-old B744 to the unreliable "new" A380!

 

[ajw373]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 10-year-old aircraft that is well-maintained.

About 6 of the fleet are closer to 5 years old. Ancient indeed.

Then again I saw in another thread someone talking about SQ's ancient A330's. Actually speaking of SQ wonder what the poster that has triggered this semi discussion thinks about the refurb program of their 'ancient' 777-200's. I can tell you they were not all done overnight, had massive product differences whilst being rolled out and certainly weren't replaced by brand spanking new aircraft.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 10-year-old aircraft that is well-maintained. Let me tell you, I would much prefer a 10-year-old B744 to the unreliable "new" A380!

Agree. Mechanically ten years is nothing in the scheme of things when an aircraft has been serviced correctly. Inside the cabin however, ten years may as well be an eternity. There is no denying the economy cabin of the A330's has been neglected with all aspects of the cabin in shocking state - toilets, seats, IFE, carpet, cabin walls, etc. There were red wine splash stains all up the side of the cabin on my last flight. Nice!! My last two flights (excluding VH-QPA which was great) I had to be moved as my seat wouldn't stay upright.

Let me be clear - I have nothing against the A330 as it is a great plane - just the level of cabin comfort and lack of interior overhaul.

Now having no certainty of what cabin one will get for the next 18 months will just rub salt into the wound.

If I was able to fly J I wouldn't have much of an issue would I? Someone needs to stick up for full price-paying economy PAX

 

[ajw373]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Inside the cabin however, ten years may as well be an eternity.

Cabins can date very quickly on any aircraft due to the shear number of pigs that are allowed in the cabin, even in business and first. Unfortunately it is not economically viable to replace the aircraft or the cabins frequently enough so they wear, pure and simple. And when it comes to cleanlness again only certain times when aircraft can be given a good spring clean.

 

[under the radar]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

just an observation.. if you stop 'feeding a beast', the beast will eventually move on!!

 

[Mrmaxwell]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

just an observation.. if you stop 'feeding a beast', the beast will eventually move on!!

No need for name calling - all I am doing is putting forward my view and current experiences flying these planes twice monthly.

Not sure why a few are so pro-QF? I will happily compliment companies where they are doing a great job - but when it comes to the product and customer service I am currently experiencing QF are falling short for the premium prices being charged on my particular routes. Isn't this why this is called a 'forum'?

And sorry I won't be moving on...been here since 2007 and lurked for many years before that

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Cabins can date very quickly on any aircraft due to the shear number of pigs that are allowed in the cabin, even in business and first. Unfortunately it is not economically viable to replace the aircraft or the cabins frequently enough so they wear, pure and simple. And when it comes to cleanlness again only certain times when aircraft can be given a good spring clean.

I dunno about that - I have never been in a CX, JL, NH cabin that has shown major signs of wear... and JL/NH did a great job of refreshing their 767s with modern Boeing interiors (including full-sized lockers). The QF refresh was pretty poor in comparison, with the cabin quickly showing signs of wear, and poor IFE.

In terms of new product roll-out - I can't say how long it took CX to do theirs for their new business classes (both the old coffin and new herringbone) - but it felt a lot quicker than QF is taking to do theirs. When CX says they have a new seat, it seems to flow fairly quickly.

 

[drron]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

Well here is an ABT article re the introduction of the new J seat in 2011-
Review: Cathay Pacific’s new business class seats - Australian Business Traveller

And last year we flew in a non refurbed CX plane in J.

 

[moa999]

Agree both the CX new J and the earlier BA new F refurbs took ages (FT even had charts by flight showings %ge likelihood for BA new First)...

As for CX, they still run a PE product in J on many over their regional widebody routes - within 12 months QF will have a flat bed on every widebody

 

[ajw373]

Re: QANTAS BNE-SIN J Class seating

I dunno about that - I have never been in a CX, JL, NH cabin that has shown major signs of wear... and JL/NH did a great job of refreshing their 767s with modern Boeing interiors (including full-sized lockers). The QF refresh was pretty poor in comparison, with the cabin quickly showing signs of wear, and poor IFE.

Qantas made it very clear the 767 refurb was a stop gap measure, not a long term one such as the Japanese have done.

As for CX, clearly you have not flown on their very early A330's. Absolutely shocking, but then again to be expected considering (some of them) are getting old.