Avoiding the Qantas 787

[Tazza_0712]

...changed out of PJs seated in the old VA 777 J in Row 5, behind the curtain... definitely not a suite, and it was a bit of a mad dash

Just a random anecdote.

 

[DavidFlynn]

I would agree here. How can this be rated as the best business class seat? With all due respect to AusBT, I don't think the seat (and again we are only talking hard product, not anything else) is the best. It doesn't even come close to SQ's newest business class on their 77W's for example. I would also rate EY's (B787, A380) and QR's (B787, A350, A380) business class seats as better.

I was rating this as a seat alone and as the excerpt says, solely on the 789, not for the A380 or 77W or anything else. Personally and on the whole I prefer the QF 789 business class seat to that of QR or EY, that's just a personal preference and it's a close call against both airlines, but it is what it is. Disagreement on my call is of course totally cool

 

[DavidFlynn]

For example, AusBT knows that if they write a scathing review of Qantas' product, their source of inside knowledge about forthcoming announcements and future invites to product launches will dry up. Qantas does not have to censor the content produced because they know the reviewer will self-censor.

Not at all. Our review of the QF789 premium economy seat plays a straight bat and clearly calls out issues surrounding legroom for example – zero 'self-censorship' here – and I know this will have no impact on how Qantas works with AusBT because Qantas PR is grown-up and respects professional journalism which is objective and fact-based, even if it doesn't accord to Qantas' own view.

We've written plenty about Qantas and other airlines which those airlines would have preferred not to have been published or brought to light (in some cases, at least not until they were ready with the press release and spin) and this has never affected and will never affect our access to information, invitations to launches etc – that's just how it works in the grown-up world.

 

[DavidFlynn]

Oh, cry me a river. Seriously!!

I've read your report on ABT, and it was sycophantic and gushy. There is nothing revolutionary about the QF787 J seat. Changing the divider from fixed to sliding and changing the colour palette is not revolutionary.

You're in error there, because I never said it was 'revolutionary'. And maybe my less-than-glowing review of the QF789 premium economy seat will help reset your opinion.

 

[hb13]

I was rating this as a seat alone and as the excerpt says, solely on the 789, not for the A380 or 77W or anything else. Personally and on the whole I prefer the QF 789 business class seat to that of QR or EY, that's just a personal preference and it's a close call against both airlines, but it is what it is. Disagreement on my call is of course totally cool

I must have missed that - my bad! Also, I can definitely see and agree that it would be completely personal preference on which dreamliner has the best best business class seat. I think someone else mentioned on this thread that the QF 789 or 332/333 business studio seat is a great seat for 6-8 hour flights, and I would tend to agree with that this seat is great for that length of journey.

 

[DavidFlynn]

It would be a very stupid business decision if he did NOT. How do you think he'll react if he misses out on the next airline launch junket? Obviously he misses out on a 'scoop', and cost him advertising dollars.

Hahaha! I land plenty of scoops without being on media trips, and the trips I do have zero influence on what I write. It'd be useful to reflect that these trips might sound amazing from the outside, to enthusiasts and avgeeks who never go on them, but to seasoned media – well, as much as the trips are 'enjoyable' and in some respects can be 'fun', they're still just trips.

And a lot of the time is spent working – getting briefings, doing Q&As and interviews, writing 'em up and filing stories. It's not one week-long jolly. It's a business class flight, and a decent (certainly not decadent) hotel in which you basically work and sleep and have breakfast, with a lot less sleep than you'd usually have at home. Even the QF7879 delivery flight was mostly spent working.

In fact, for me, the 'fun' part of a trip is the writing part! I love writing, I love doing a good interview or being at a good briefing and landing a good story. I love creating the content that people will read, and that's scoops or stories or seat reviews.

So while I can do a dozen press trips in a year, and I've been a full-time journalist for over 20 years (first in tech, plenty of trips there too, now in business travel), a press trip alone holds zero sway on what I write because the trip is nothing special in and of itself.

 

[dajop]

AThe only way one can be truely independent and report non-bias reviews is arms length flights, purchased like any other pax.

Even then they need to travel anonymously, there are lots of video bloggers around who let the crew know they are doing a video blog. The fact that the cabin crew know they are being observed can consciously or unconsciously bias their behavior, so could bias the cabin service. Of course that doesn't alter the hard product, menu, IFE etc.

 

[Economy_Gold]

My concern about the QF 789 J suite is that it works fairly well for the current missions it is on - the 8-10 hour asia missions, but we're talking 17 hours PER-LHR ULH operations... ANY seat is going to be painful (let's not even contemplate Y, though many will have to ) and it seems QF have not changed the overall design much to even provide a little more room.. once in those seats it can be a little crampy to me. That with the lack of a stand up sort of area (bar if you will) means pax will be more or less confined to their seating area which isn't going to be much fun come 13+ hours in. Sure, you can get up and go walk and hang around the door 2/galley area until the FAs get sick of it, or walk down the back but it seems like QF have ignored that on such a long flight just getting up and stretching is vital for many every so often. Even doing F on the 380 I get up and go stretch ahead of the lavs in the 1L area (1R being that little rest area) or walk upstairs to the J "lounge" area.. it's something... of course we know on the 789 being forward of row 1 is difficult due to the coughpit location, security etc....

Come to think of it, there seems nothing for PE or Y pax either in this regard.

I know space is $$$$ and all, but I think some other carriers may have thought this through a little better.

Back on topic and I agree with RichardMEL that this IS a real issue. The plane in its current configuration is a nice place for Australia-Asia flights, but has ZERO special attention to the fact that it will be used for one of the world's longest flights and the lack of any movement area for any pax is a real downer (together with the low toilet ratio).

 

[Pleb Status]

Personally and on the whole I prefer the QF 789 business class seat to that of QR or EY, that's just a personal preference and it's a close call against both airlines, but it is what it is. Disagreement on my call is of course totally cool

This admission makes your own published conclusion even more tenuous.

Everybody has their own opinion and that is what it is. If you had stated that the QF 789 J seat was 'one of the best', I would still disagree, but that is your opinion and it would have given you some wiggle room against criticism/claims of favouritism (...it was a close call etc).

However, you stated in your published conclusion that you were 'confident' that the QF 789 J seat was 'the best'. No wiggle room here. This conclusion indicates that you have flown in (or at least experienced) every 787 J seat available in the market and that the gap between the QF J seat and their 787 competitors is large enough that most knowledgeable* pax would select the QF J seat as 'the best'. I am 'confident' they would not...

Looking at the entire J market today (not just on the 787), I am also 'confident' that a poll of knowledgeable* pax would not find a single particular J seat as 'the best' as pax preferences can vary significantly.

At least I now know that I have 40+ hours of the world 'best' A330 J seat (by extension) coming up in the next month or so. Why am I still looking for CX J availability however....

* pax that have flown at least 50-100 hours in each of a large variety of lie flat J seats over a large number of airlines.

 

[Denali]

This was interesting, "The middle seat of each premium economy row (the ‘E’ seats: 20E, 21E, 22E and 23E) is actually a bit wider again, at 23.3 inches (59cm), while passengers on the aisle seats (A, D, F and J) can recover more space to spread by pushing down the aisle-side armrest."

The foot rest hammock thing looks uncomfortable. I wonder if having your calf settle on the hard foot rest for a long period creates health issues. I know it would for me.

 

[DavidFlynn]

Economy_Gold: while there’s not much room to spare on the 787-9 for a lounge or bar area I’m totally with you and RichardMEL on the difference these make to the passenger experience on a long-haul flight.

Even on the relatively short LHR-DOH leg of QR’s A380 I really enjoyed being able to spend time in the business class lounge - had a snack, did some reading - just nice to be able to ‘escape’ from one’s seat, no matter how nice it is (a spacious EY-style F suit might be different!).

Ditto for the bar on Virgin Australia’s B777 to LAX, a few hours at the bar chatting with some fellow travellers was not just a welcome change of scenery but it made the flight seem a lot shorter by helping pass the time in a different way.

Maybe there’s a slightly alternative universe out there where QF made the 789 an all-premium config with more business class and better premium economy pitch, no Y, and a really cool lounge/bar area between J and Y+ (they may share some of our toilets but they’re not sharing our bar!).

 

[DavidFlynn]

Something else which may be of interest or worthy of note: the seat cushions in Y+ and Y turned out to be the exact same width, 49cm from edge to edge, which goes to show how armrests play into perceptions – indeed, realities – of "how wide is my seat?"

In Y+ you have wider armrests so there's room for your elbows to rest upon plus the cut-out space built into the arm-rests; in Y there are those thin tapered armrests that are just big enough for the point of your elbow as long as you snare that real estate ahead of your seatmate! Of course, if you've scored a shadow you swing the armrest up – it completely disappears into the gap between the seats.

However, the Y bulkhead and exit row seats with their fixed armrests (which contain swing-up IFE screen and meal table) proved to be just just 43cm from cushion edge-to-edge... combine a narrower seat with immoveable armrests and there's a clear trade-off for enjoying the extra legroom of the front row (so they could be best choice for a passenger who's long and lean).

 

[justinbrett]

David, how does the QF Y+ seat stack up to the BA WTP seat?

 

[andyhui01]

Something else which may be of interest or worthy of note: the seat cushions in Y+ and Y turned out to be the exact same width, 49cm from edge to edge, which goes to show how armrests play into perceptions – indeed, realities – of "how wide is my seat?"
...
However, the Y bulkhead and exit row seats with their fixed armrests (which contain swing-up IFE screen and meal table) proved to be just just 43cm from cushion edge-to-edge...

Can I just confirm this? That is just over 2" which is massive.

I never take exit row for this reason as I know the seats are narrow but I didn't realise they were 2" narrower.

While we are on the topic of seat width, which I have given QF alot of cough about in the 789. Would you be able to do a comparison of the seat cushion width of say the QF A388/789, VA 77W, SQ A388/77W, EK A388/77W or any other airlines you have data available.

This would be a more accurate real world width. Would be interested to see how QF 789 compares.

 

[Danger]

This thread has gone ridiculously off-topic. But it's a very interesting off-topic and I'd like to see it moved to its own standalone thread.

Another article - this time all three classes are reviewed:

A 17-hour long haul? How the Qantas Dreamliner's seats stack up

When I saw the misplaced apostrophe in the headline, I didn't go any further. More average travel journalism. I think Australian Business Traveller (or its writers) sometimes contribute to Fairfax.

 

[JohnPhelan]

When I saw the misplaced apostrophe in the headline, I didn't go any further. More average travel journalism. I think Australian Business Traveller (or its writers) sometimes contribute to Fairfax.

At the current time, Qantas has only ONE Dreamliner. Singular possessive.

 

[drron]

And if the Dreamliner is a game changer for QF why did JQ get first bite?

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Wonder if QF will sell Comfort seating on the 787s as they do with the 737s on shorter flights.
Or as mentioned by David, and hopefully get a shadow.

 

[RichardMEL]

And if the Dreamliner is a game changer for QF why did JQ get first bite?

To be fair, at the time QF "gave" JQ the 787-8 orders to fly their asia (and HNL) missions. In turn, the JQ 330's transitioned to the QF fleet for the domestic and asia runs where, I would assume, the older airframes would have a lower cost base compared to the brand new(~2012) 788's. Seems to me it made more sense for QF to fly the 330's on these runs, specially the transcons, than the 787's which JQ could crame 335 souls into and make $$$ flying to DPS, HNL etc for a higher yield.

In terms of "game changers" - the 788 doesn't have the legs for these ULH missions. Now yes, a 788 has done LAX-MEL (UA had flown them from time to time), but it could never do the PER-LHR version.

the 789 can do that, so in this respect it is a game chancer of sorts.

 

[justinbrett]

To be fair, at the time QF "gave" JQ the 787-8 orders to fly their asia (and HNL) missions. In turn, the JQ 330's transitioned to the QF fleet for the domestic and asia runs where, I would assume, the older airframes would have a lower cost base compared to the brand new(~2012) 788's. Seems to me it made more sense for QF to fly the 330's on these runs, specially the transcons, than the 787's which JQ could crame 335 souls into and make $$$ flying to DPS, HNL etc for a higher yield.

In terms of "game changers" - the 788 doesn't have the legs for these ULH missions. Now yes, a 788 has done LAX-MEL (UA had flown them from time to time), but it could never do the PER-LHR version.

the 789 can do that, so in this respect it is a game chancer of sorts.

Yep, it was a very different environment back then. The very future of Qantas International was in doubt. It was not the time to launch new routes. It was also a solution to the 767 retirement (give JQ the B787, old JQ A330s replace QF 767).

Basically, Economics. That's why JQ got them.