QF490 MEL-SYD 19:30 on an A330
No PDB offered this time (not even bottled water), oh well!
Seated in 7A on the A330 which I think is the best seat in J. First it's an aisle and a window seat (i.e. no neighbours), you aren't in the zoo that is the main cabin of J but rather the cozy secondary J cabin behind it. Another nice benefit is there is a locker on the corner that can easily swallow your bags so you don't have to reach for the overhead locker:
Decent load on this flight, including in the J cabin, I'd reckon maybe 40% load (I know that's not a lot but compared to the past few QF flights where I'd be lucky if there was someone else in J at least it's not like that). Fortunately I was the only one in the secondary J cabin.
One of the downsides of sitting in 7A especially if there are others in J is it may take some time to get your meal order. In this case I'd say about 20 minutes a FA came to serve my dinner. There were no options, just chicken so far as I can tell. I didn't mind since I ain't a choosy eater (so long as it ain't veg
):
Chicken dish was pretty good, arguably the best meal I've gotten on a QF plane thus far. Chicken was tasty and flavourful and the addition of potatoes and other greens was certainly welcome. I also got two slices of bread (not pictured here) and they were good too. For drinks I ordered sparkling wine and water, which were as expected. The addition of the Lindor bar instead of the Lindor bonbons were also welcome too.
If there is really one gripe I have about the service it's that the meals weren't delivered quick enough. On a one hour flight like MEL > SYD on a lie flat, like this QF A330, I'm expecting to spend 20 minutes eating, 30 minutes in lie flat mode and 10 minutes in the climb out and landing phase. Now that's how you get value out of these short flights - dinner and a snooze!
-RooFlyer88