pythonisman
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2012
- Posts
- 606
Japan/Cambodia trip report
I thought I’d write my first trip report as I was lucky enough to travel on one of Qantas’ refurbished international A333s. This trip will take me on a bit of a Oneworld Status run (crediting to Qantas Frequent Flyer), flying with three airlines in the alliance - QF, MH and JL, all in J/Business; taking advantage of some of MH’s incredibly competitive J tickets. This trip will take me on a (hopefully) epic ski trip in Japan; both Hokkaido (Niseko) and Honshu (Hakuba)
I've composed this offline along the way, and am going to post it in a few chunks provided they all work. I'm currently sitting in the QF SIN lounge prior to my return to Australia...
First leg- QF; VH-QPA - the “New Qantas Business suite” in their A330-300 aircraft.
QF5 SYD-SIN
I was kicking back enjoying the SYD QF J lounge (as a nobody travelling in Business class) when boarding was called on time - fairly early in fact at about 45 minutes prior to departure time. Headed down to the gate (amusingly -to me only- the same gate I left for QF81 a couple of years ago, on a vastly inferior jet!). Took my seat in 3E, one of the “aisle aisle” seats, with a retractable armrest.
VH-QPA waiting at the gate
First experiences were great, and everyone in the cabin was commenting on how great the new layout was. The crew were proudly introducing the new business suites and their features. I settled in, asked for a champagne and checked out all the nooks and crannies in the seat.
The new Qantas “Business Suite”
First impressions - It’s very comfortable, spacious and feels private (though the seats with a table in between the seat and the aisle are, as you could expect, much more private). There surprisingly isn’t a huge amount of “seat storage” space. A small shelf you can’t store anything in during takeoff/landing; a small nook with the blanket you’re meant to only store “soft” items in, and a very shallow magazine/safety card holder. I’m guessing you could probably fit a cabin bag or similar in the footwell, but it didn’t seem like that was the done thing.
Business class doesn’t mean you’re classy
Unfortunately we were waylaid on the ground for some time - first with the IFE system; engineers were rebooting just about everything for about an hour on the ground. Made it apparent that the recently reported issues with IFE were definitely not solved!
Engineering, trying to fix the IFE
After the door was closed, I noticed the aerobridge coming back for us, and we were told a tyre pressure indicator had gone off in the cabin, so the engineers were coming back to update documentation on the aircraft, and validate it was ok. After about another 15 minutes, we closed the doors again and then started to push back. For about 30 seconds. Ground crew/engineering called the coughpit and asked them to return to the gate, to confirm that the problem was fixed. We spent about another 15 minutes at the gate and pushed back a bit over an hour late.
Crew came to take orders for the meal choices on the ground. The menu looked pretty decent; I chose a wagyu beef salad starter, lamb rack main, and had cheese for dessert. Meal was solid, not outstanding, the wines were quality Australian and flowed freely.
Wagyu beef salad
Lamb Rack
Cheese plate
Menu
I thought I’d write my first trip report as I was lucky enough to travel on one of Qantas’ refurbished international A333s. This trip will take me on a bit of a Oneworld Status run (crediting to Qantas Frequent Flyer), flying with three airlines in the alliance - QF, MH and JL, all in J/Business; taking advantage of some of MH’s incredibly competitive J tickets. This trip will take me on a (hopefully) epic ski trip in Japan; both Hokkaido (Niseko) and Honshu (Hakuba)
I've composed this offline along the way, and am going to post it in a few chunks provided they all work. I'm currently sitting in the QF SIN lounge prior to my return to Australia...
First leg- QF; VH-QPA - the “New Qantas Business suite” in their A330-300 aircraft.
QF5 SYD-SIN
I was kicking back enjoying the SYD QF J lounge (as a nobody travelling in Business class) when boarding was called on time - fairly early in fact at about 45 minutes prior to departure time. Headed down to the gate (amusingly -to me only- the same gate I left for QF81 a couple of years ago, on a vastly inferior jet!). Took my seat in 3E, one of the “aisle aisle” seats, with a retractable armrest.
VH-QPA waiting at the gate
First experiences were great, and everyone in the cabin was commenting on how great the new layout was. The crew were proudly introducing the new business suites and their features. I settled in, asked for a champagne and checked out all the nooks and crannies in the seat.
The new Qantas “Business Suite”
First impressions - It’s very comfortable, spacious and feels private (though the seats with a table in between the seat and the aisle are, as you could expect, much more private). There surprisingly isn’t a huge amount of “seat storage” space. A small shelf you can’t store anything in during takeoff/landing; a small nook with the blanket you’re meant to only store “soft” items in, and a very shallow magazine/safety card holder. I’m guessing you could probably fit a cabin bag or similar in the footwell, but it didn’t seem like that was the done thing.
Business class doesn’t mean you’re classy
Unfortunately we were waylaid on the ground for some time - first with the IFE system; engineers were rebooting just about everything for about an hour on the ground. Made it apparent that the recently reported issues with IFE were definitely not solved!
Engineering, trying to fix the IFE
After the door was closed, I noticed the aerobridge coming back for us, and we were told a tyre pressure indicator had gone off in the cabin, so the engineers were coming back to update documentation on the aircraft, and validate it was ok. After about another 15 minutes, we closed the doors again and then started to push back. For about 30 seconds. Ground crew/engineering called the coughpit and asked them to return to the gate, to confirm that the problem was fixed. We spent about another 15 minutes at the gate and pushed back a bit over an hour late.
Crew came to take orders for the meal choices on the ground. The menu looked pretty decent; I chose a wagyu beef salad starter, lamb rack main, and had cheese for dessert. Meal was solid, not outstanding, the wines were quality Australian and flowed freely.
Wagyu beef salad
Lamb Rack
Cheese plate
Menu