So my initial review of A220 on the first Brisbane to Melbourne.
QF629 which was meant to be a 737 flight got cancelled in the system when the A220 flights were announced and replaced by QF1255. Everyone on the 629 was moved to 1255 although they were offering fly forward yesterday so we ended leaving with a few seats empty.
There was no mention at the gate/onboard regarding it being the first A220 revenue departure from Brisbane and boarding ended up being about an hour late due to a catering bungle. The Brisbane ground staff seemed to think that the aircraft has been reverse catered from Melbourne but after everyone got off that ended up not being the case and as a result they rang the catering company who claimed they didn’t have any food for a QF1255 flight. They eventually discovered that the cater still had the old QF629 number in for this flights catering and eventually it was delivered but took time as they first loaded from the rear then moved the truck and loaded from the front. Meanwhile the road warriors some found out it was a brand new plane and even noted they weren’t sure how they felt about flying on a brand new plane. Boarding eventually got underway and priority line cleared first, the plane had that new car smell but a surprising amount of wear (crew jump seat which was white leather had scuff marks, over head bins had scuff marks and tray tables were dirty).
Eventually we got underway and the wifi wasn’t working, they reset this half an hour into the flight and it started working but no where near as stable as on the 737s (my VPN can hold a whole flight on a 737 normally but clearly beam changes are more noticeable or something else).
Meal was typical domestic economy drinks and a snack of cheese and crackers (I’m glad they waited an hour to load that…)
In seat power a shared AC socket in economy works well plus 60W usb-c (that does deliver about 60W - we tested that) plus a USB A (worth noting that all 737s at a minimum have USB A now). Now the A220 is certainly smaller than a 737 and yesterday there was a fair amount of bad weather on route, the turbulence is more noticeable on an A220 (I’ve been on many in Europe before).
In short if you’ve got the choice between a 737 and A220 on a mainline route I’d pick the 737 however if it was an A220 vs a E190 or 717 Id obviously pick the A220 any day.