Qantas refurbished 767 QF4 on HNL SYD

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reniklaf

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I am a QFF Platinum member and yesterday travelled from HNL on a newly refurbished 767 in Business. Ambience was OK. Seats are supposedly redesigned by Marc Newson however pitch is so short that if the person in front fully reclines a taller person behind cannot do the same because there is insufficient room for feet and knees. I could not even straighten my legs on the footrest when the seat in front was not reclined, and wound up having to place my feet on the floor on either side of the footrest. It appears as though the seats have only been designed (not very well) to cope with sub 1.8 m people and even then my wife who is also QFF Platinum (and sub 1.8 m) said that if the person in front of her had reclined she would have felt so closed in and uncomfortable it would have made her feel claustrophobic. Fortunately this did not happen as the seat in front of her was upright the whole journey. The new seats are not lie flat at all, and on a reasonably long haul flight (approx 10 hours) this is just not good enough. I got on the plane hoping to catch up on some sleep after paying full fare and I was unable to sleep even for a moment, because of the uncomfortable seats. I also found that the leather used in the seats appeared to have been treated with something that did not allow it to breath properly so my back and backside were sweaty the whole flight. I recently flew Q business to Bankok on a similar sized plane and the older seats on that plane were more comfortable even though they also did not fully recline. The pitch appeared to be better. I will not fly Q again on a refurbished 767, and cannot understand why they have compromised passenger comfort with these unacceptable medium to long haul seats. In the end I felt that I would have been more comfortable in an exit row economy seat for a fraction of the fare I had paid.

As a further complaint the Q entertainment system is not yet up and running properly in Business, and if you haven't brought your own iPad then you are handed a portable DVD player and a small case of movies. The DVD player does not work properly with the supplied headphones (volume will not go loud enough) and if I had not had a pair of very good earphones with me my wife would have been unable to hear anything. I was too uncomfortable to watch anything.

On the positive side the service from the cabin staff was outstanding, however not enough for me to ever consider flying on one of these Q planes again. I had flown over to the US on a 747 direct to DFW and although not perfect at least the seats (similar to those on the 380) were almost long enough for a taller person and did lie flat allowing some sleep.
 
Are you sure it is refurbished if they didn't hand you an iPad? The seats haven't changed either, they have just been reupholstered. I'm not sure of Marc Newton designed the dreamtime seats.

As for the seats, the 767 business seat has the greatest seat pitch of any of the carriers flying directly between Australia and HNL, so hence the reason QF puts the 767's on that route. I guess the perception of less room is a common theme with the recliner based seats.
 
It's the same plane that's been flying the run for years, no new seats just leather instead of fabric, a bit of new carpet and some ipads. I've flown on that 1-2-2 refurbished 767 recently on SYD-MEL. Surprised to hear ipad's were not available as they were on my syd-mel fight.
 
The plane was OGS - didn't think it was refurbed yet but may be wrong.
 
I recently flew Q business to Bankok on a similar sized plane and the older seats on that plane were more comfortable even though they also did not fully recline. The pitch appeared to be better. I will not fly Q again on a refurbished 767,

I didn't realise that QF flew the 767 to BKK - I thought it only the A330s with angled Skybed Mk I?
 
I always thought the seat pitch on the INT 767's was pretty good..
 
The new seats are not lie flat at all, and on a reasonably long haul flight (approx 10 hours) this is just not good enough.

They are not "new seats"!! They are simply the old Dreamtime seats, with new cushions and seat covers. At no point has Qantas ever said that these seats were "lie flat" - from where did you get that idea?

Pitch remains unchanged. With your height issue, you should either choose row 1, or sit in one of the A seats (which are on their own, so give a bit more flexibility for leg placement).
 
From Australia to HNL, the only direct flights are on QF (SYD-HNL) and HA (SYD-HNL and BNE-HNL) and JQ (SYD-HNL). HA flies the A330 from SYD and the 767 from BNE (though HA has said this will change to an A330 at some point).

The seat pitch on the QF 767 is larger than the pitch on either of the HA aircraft. The upshot of this is that, if you are flying direct from Australia to Hawaii, QF has the best seat pitch in J.

There are other, more circuitous, options, of course - FJ via NAN, NZ via AKL, UA (from Cairns via Guam), or JL (via NRT or KIX).

Occasionally QF does run the A330 with Skybeds to HNL - I've just come back from a trip to Hawaii and got the A330 both ways. (They tend to do this in peak holiday travel times). Personally, I would love to see QF return to using a 744 on the route (when demand is sufficient) or the 787 (whenever they start to appear in QF colours).
 
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The pitch on these is 50" - I find them much better than that for the domestic or the PE 'Business' seats.
 
Are you sure it is refurbished if they didn't hand you an iPad? The seats haven't changed either, they have just been reupholstered. I'm not sure of Marc Newton designed the dreamtime seats.

As for the seats, the 767 business seat has the greatest seat pitch of any of the carriers flying directly between Australia and HNL, so hence the reason QF puts the 767's on that route. I guess the perception of less room is a common theme with the recliner based seats.

We were told by the Flight Service Director (a delightful man), that it was so new they had not yet installed the ipads because the charging station was not yet installed. We were also told the interior of the plane had been completely refurbished not just reupholstered, and that a decision had been made to install these particular seats because the plane was near the end of its service life (and therefore the assumption was that it was not worth installing the 380 lie flat seats). I am only going by what I was told by various staff members.

I had a 3 year old child in front of me who because she was sleeping most of the way, had the seat fully reclined for much of the flight. I am 198 cm tall and I couldn't put my feet on the footrest because my knees were totally jammed in to the seat back unless I spread them completely apart or put my feet on either side of the footrest on the floor. Perhaps my comments would only apply to someone over 1.8 m but there are plenty of us! To get out of the seat with the seat in front fully reclined meant I had to swing my legs over the side armrest and then lever myself over the armrest! It was impossible any other way.
 
With due respect are you over 1.8 m tall and have you been on a flight where the passenger in front has had the seat mostly in the fully reclined position?

I am a loyal Q customer (Platinum) and this is the first time I have had such an uncomfortable flight in business class.
 
Do you ever fly Y non-exit rows? Im not sure you would physically fit into the seat.
 
With due respect are you over 1.8 m tall and have you been on a flight where the passenger in front has had the seat mostly in the fully reclined position?

I am a loyal Q customer (Platinum) and this is the first time I have had such an uncomfortable flight in business class.
that is actually a valid complaint...when the 'dreamtime' are FULLY reclined the seat backs do hover low over your lower half of body, thus restricting space to move (feet, getting in/out of seat restricted by the height of fixed armrests) ... but i might add that requiring the need for 'princess 3y/o' in front of you to have seat FULLY reclined is a bit 'precious' in my eyes!! a comfortable 'sleep' position with LESS recline can be achieved for a 3y/o ;) ..but sadly that 'suggestion' may not have gone down well with 'the parents' :oops:
 
I am a loyal Q customer (Platinum) and this is the first time I have had such an uncomfortable flight in business class.

You must have been flying J only since the early 2000s, then. Prior to then, the Dreamtime seats - exactly the same ones as on your 767, with the exact same seat pitch - were the J class seats in all QF 747 and 767 international aircraft. The Dreamtime seats were replaced on the 747s by the Skybed I seats. The Dreamtime seats remained on the 767 fleet.

Should those seats still be in use for international overnight services? No, they should not. Are they better than the seats offered by QF's direct competitors on the HNL route (HA and JQ)? Yes they are.

The Customer Service Manager was quite correct - the 767 you were on has been totally refurbished - new carpets, wall panels, seat covers and padding, etc. However, the seat frames themselves were not changed. If you go back through the announcements that QF made about the 767 refurbs, you'll see it spelt out quite clearly.
 
Thank you for clarifying the situation re the refurb. I normally fly even longer distances to Europe or the US mainland, and even on a recent Q flight to Thailand on an Airbus the seats in J were acceptable. I agree with you that these 767 seats are unacceptable for J class and I will never ever fly again on this plane until improvements are made.
 
I don't think you will be flying to HNL with QF until this aircraft is out of service.
 
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From Australia to HNL, the only direct flights are on QF (SYD-HNL) and HA (SYD-HNL and BNE-HNL) and JQ (SYD-HNL). HA flies the A330 from SYD and the 767 from BNE (though HA has said this will change to an A330 at some point).

The seat pitch on the QF 767 is larger than the pitch on either of the HA aircraft. The upshot of this is that, if you are flying direct from Australia to Hawaii, QF has the best seat pitch in J.

There are other, more circuitous, options, of course - FJ via NAN, NZ via AKL, UA (from Cairns via Guam), or JL (via NRT or KIX).

Occasionally QF does run the A330 with Skybeds to HNL - I've just come back from a trip to Hawaii and got the A330 both ways. (They tend to do this in peak holiday travel times). Personally, I would love to see QF return to using a 744 on the route (when demand is sufficient) or the 787 (whenever they start to appear in QF colours).

United fly from Cairns to Guam? I did not know that.
 
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