Traveled MEL->PER in J on an Airbus on the weekend and then back in Y on a 737. My wife and I (and 19 month old son) booked Flexis and used two of my WP comp upgrades for the J leg, and a colleague used his points as SG to upgrade from Flexi to J. The lounge unfortunately called the flight for boarding around 20 minutes before it actually boarded, but no matter.
Finding our way on-board there were three or four others in the J cabin. The flight was delayed around 40 minutes because our FA was late coming from another flight. As a result we ended up with two PDB's to kill the time. The new business suites are nice, although I found there was nowhere to store much stuff (eg; my tablet lives in a case and therefore won't fit in the tablet storage part). The seat itself was fairly comfortable, although later in the flight I found myself wishing the touch-screen for adjusting it either was dimmable or could be set to turn off more quickly. The suite felt a little claustrophobic compared to when I've had a double of J seats to myself on other flights, but if the cabin was full it would be a significant improvement.
The touch-screen IFE was quite an improvement over the previous generation, both in quality and responsiveness. The redesigned hand controller felt like it was missing buttons compared to the previous model which could be a bit annoying when performing a couple of tasks. The ability to chat and watch something at the same time was quite welcome, however switching between full-screen and side-by-side was a bit fiddly. The feature of being able to watch something at the same time as another person and chat about it was a pretty great idea, although we did notice it didn't actually synchronize anything.
Prior to take-off we had an off-duty FA up the front filling in and keeping us company while waiting for ours (she would later go and sit down the back of Y) who was a real delight. We filled in the menu cards to help our FA save time when she arrived, but she came around and confirmed our orders anyway. Just prior to meal service (and around 90 minutes into the flight) the FA came past and told my colleague and I that they didn't have enough of our meal option and someone would have to swap (we both chose the red duck curry, the other options were some sort of fish dish and a feta pie). My colleague begrudgingly swapped. We were served meals, and after dinner offered a drink and something from the pantry menu before our FA disappeared behind the curtain to ride out the flight. I used the crew call bell to ask for another drink which arrived after a 20 minute delay. Later in the flight I flagged down a passing FA and asked for a refill only to be told "First I need to know how many you've had, you've probably already had four". Certainly a first for me - and all the more unlikely given I was travelling with wife and child. Another FA later told me that this is what they do now for RSA - it doesn't come down to an assessment of you, but rather one drink per hour. Really?
All-up not the best MEL-PER I've done by a long stretch. It reinforces to me just how much the service forms part of the product - you can have the nicest J suites in the sky but it doesn't mean much if your staff aren't on their game. My colleague was all the more disappointed.
) and he was also able to help a solo lady with baby. He baby sat whilst mum used the J lav and then he did the same again later just so she could have her meal. He was excellent and it was really a refreshing change to the apparant FA disease which seems to have become so rampant!
Smells like cost cutting to me.
