Fiji Airways A350-900 Economy Class Review (Sydney-Nadi)

When I needed to get to Singapore during the school holidays, I’ll admit that Fiji Airways wasn’t the first airline that came to mind. But when the Oneworld Connect member appeared on Google Flights for less than half the price of Qantas and Singapore Airlines, I jumped at the opportunity to fly with them.

Before taking this flight, I’d never flown with Fiji Airways before. In fact, I’d never previously been to Fiji, either. It was time to change that!

Fiji Airways has been growing in recent years. It’s invested in new aircraft like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 737 MAX, and expanded its network to new destinations like Dallas/Fort Worth and Canberra. It now flies to five Australian airports, and will soon add a sixth with Cairns-Nadi flights launching in April.

More than a niche airline in the Pacific, Fiji Airways now connects quite a lot of passengers between Australia, New Zealand and North America. It also offers good connectivity to destinations across the Pacific, and key Asian destinations like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.

For my trip, I flew on the Fiji Airways Airbus A350-900 in Economy Class from Sydney to Nadi. I then stopped over in Fiji for a couple of days – which I could do without paying any more for my ticket – before continuing from Nadi to Singapore. Yes, it’s a bit of a longer way to get to Singapore… but the savings were substantial. And as they say, the journey is as important as the destination. 😉

I have no regrets about doing this. In fact, as I’ll explain in this review, I really enjoyed the Fiji Airways A350 Economy Class experience.

Flight Details

Flight number	FJ910
Route	Sydney (SYD) to Nadi (NAN)
Aircraft type	Airbus A350-900
Class of travel	Economy
Seat number	52A
On-time performance	We arrived an hour late
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

I paid $544 for a one-way Economy Value ticket from Sydney to Singapore via Nadi. While all Fiji Airways tickets between Australia and Fiji include food, drinks and entertainment (including the cheapest Lite fare option), the Value fare also includes a checked bag.

At the time of writing, an Economy Value fare from Sydney to Nadi as a standalone journey starts from around $297 one-way or $657 return. (The return flight is more expensive due to Fiji’s expensive airport departure tax.)

You could also use Qantas Frequent Flyer points to book Fiji Airways flights. In fact, this can be a great deal because Fiji Airways flights cost the same number of points as a Qantas flight (not the higher rate applicable to most partner airline redemptions). Additionally, Fiji Airways does not impose any carrier surcharges – so you just pay the third-party taxes.

A one-way Fiji Airways Classic Reward flight from Sydney to Nadi in Economy would cost 18,000 Qantas Points + $114 in taxes.

Airport Experience

Fiji Airways had three check-in queues open at Sydney Airport: Economy, Premium and Bag Drop.

Priority check-in is one of the few benefits afforded to Oneworld frequent flyers flying with Fiji Airways as a Oneworld Connect member. Thanks to my Qantas Platinum status, I was able to use the Premium line.

Even without status, if you hadn’t already checked in online, you could save time by simply checking in using one of the kiosks at the end of the check-in row. After printing your own boarding pass and bag tag, simply join the much shorter Bag Drop queue.

The check-in agent was very friendly and talkative. He mentioned that all the staff were really looking forward to the airline becoming a full Oneworld alliance member later this year.

As a side note, I saw the same agent again at the boarding gate. I was impressed that he not only remembered me, but also a small detail I’d shared while checking in several hours earlier.

The inbound aircraft was late, but I was able to snap this photo when it eventually touched down at Sydney Airport:

Once boarding was able to start, Fiji Airways first invited families with young children. This was followed by priority zones A and B. Although I was in Economy, Oneworld Emerald status gets you into zone A as well. (Priority boarding is the only other Oneworld Connect benefit offered to all Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald members flying Fiji Airways.)

The Hard Product

The Airbus A350-900 is Fiji Airways’ flagship long-haul aircraft. It has a modern interior with pleasant mood lighting and comfortable seats in a 3-3-3 layout.

Fiji Airways A350-900 Economy seats

I had chosen seat 52A for this flight, which turned out to be a great choice. Choosing this seat wasn’t as expensive as selecting an exit row seat, but it had virtually unlimited legroom as there was no seat in front of it.

There are a few limitations with this seat, as the TV folds out from under the armrest, the tray table is stored in the armrest and there’s no seat pocket to store anything. But the “direct” aisle access from an Economy window seat more than made up for all of that!

I fully acknowledge that most Economy seats don’t come with this kind of legroom, but the standard legroom also seemed quite good for Economy Class.

My seat had a good amount of padding and an adjustable headrest. Overall, it’s a great aircraft and I’d be happy with this on a long-haul flight as well.

Fiji Airways A350-900 Economy entertainment

Every passenger gets access to a personal in-flight entertainment screen. On the Airbus A350, Fiji Airways had a pretty comprehensive selection of movies and TV shows to watch, as well as lots of music, games and magazines.

Compared to other airlines flying between Australia and Fiji, the Fiji Airways A350 had a much larger variety of entertainment content than Qantas or Virgin Australia on the Boeing 737s they use on the same route – let alone Jetstar.

There’s even a live external camera that you can view on your TV screen.

Theoretically, Fiji Airways offers free text-based messaging for all passengers on its Airbus A350-900, with paid Wi-Fi plans also available. However, I was personally unable to actually connect to the free Wi-Fi chat service despite trying multiple different times during the flight.

The Soft Product

On this flight, Fiji Airways backed up its great hard product with equally good service.

I was warmly greeted by multiple flight attendants when boarding the plane, and the friendly smiles continued for the entire flight.

Fiji Airways provides a complimentary headset to all Economy passengers. Blankets were available on request. I did not see any pillows, but this was only a relatively short flight. The airline does provide pillows on long-haul services, as I found out a few days later.

After taking off from Sydney, the cabin crew handed out cups of Fiji Water to everybody. This was followed by a lunch service, which took a little while but was worth the wait. Every passenger received a complimentary choice of two hot meal options: Chicken in oyster sauce with vegetables, or a vegetarian chickpea curry with rice.

I chose the curry and I’m really glad I did. It was absolutely delicious! This came with a bread roll, butter and a chocolate biscuit.

Lunch also came with a choice of drinks. The crew had bottles of red and white wine prominently displayed on the top of the drinks cart and were proactively offering the wine. Other beverages including soft drinks, juice, spirits and Fijian beer were also available on request.

Extra snacks and drinks were available from the galley and the crew offered tea, coffee and another round of water after the main meal service.

Soon, the sun was setting and we were getting close to Fiji!

Before landing, the cabin crew came through the aisle with the duty-free trolley. Once we started our descent, they also collected all the headphones – although they did let passengers who were still using them continue watching their movies.

Due to the late departure, we landed in Fiji around an hour behind schedule. Luckily, there was still enough time for the very large number of passengers with connecting flights to make their onward journeys.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.