Jetstar Boeing 787 Economy Class Review

Jetstar, the budget airline owned by Qantas, uses Boeing 787s on longer-range international routes to places like Hawaii, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea.

Jetstar now primarily flies its new Airbus A321neo LR planes to Bali, freeing up the Boeing 787s it previously used for new long-haul routes such as Sydney-Seoul. While Qantas and Jetstar currently share the flying on this route, Jetstar will take over completely with daily flights of its own from June 2025.

I needed to get to South Korea over the Christmas holidays, and Jetstar easily had the cheapest direct flight. So, I booked it for the same reason that most people generally choose Jetstar. 😉

Matt previously reviewed Jetstar Business Class from Sydney to Seoul. It seemed fitting for me to review Jetstar Boeing 787 Economy Class on the same route! How bad could it possible be?

Flight Details

Flight number	JQ47
Route	Sydney (SYD) – Seoul Incheon (ICN)
Aircraft type	Boeing 787-8
Class of travel	Economy Class
Seat number	36A
On-time performance	We arrived two hours late
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

My one-way Jetstar ticket to Seoul cost me $738.55 for the most basic Starter fare. While you can find cheaper fares than this at off-peak times, I was flying just after Christmas.

I did add a Starter Plus fare bundle for $67, bringing the total to $805.55. The Starter Plus bundle got me the following:

• 20kg checked baggage
• Free standard seat selection
• A meal or $15 in-flight dining credit (I chose the credit)

Buying the bundle saved me a grand total of $4, if you add the purchasable items separately. If you’re not after any of the options, it’s cheaper to simply add what you want rather than purchase a fare bundle.

You can also use Qantas points for this flight, which will cost you 26,000 Qantas points + ~$170 in taxes & carrier charges for an Economy Classic Reward. This includes checked baggage, but not meals or seat selection.

Airport Experience

Unfortunately, the day got off to a poor start as I received a text message from Jetstar advising that my flight was delayed. The new departure time would be 12.50pm.

Jetstar works its Boeing 787s extremely hard, with tight scheduling that leaves little room to recover from disruptions. This often leads to delays and cancellations.

Jetstar uses the check-in row K, located right at the end of Sydney Terminal 1. I waited around 25 minutes to check in. Note that Jetstar does weigh and tag carry-on bags, so make sure your bag doesn’t weigh more than the limit!

Security was heaving due to the usual morning rush, and amplified by the Christmas/New Year holiday period. Despite this, they organised and staffed it well. Even though the queues stretched all the way to the e-gates, I was able to clear security in about 15 minutes.

The food court at Pier B was chaotic, with virtually no free seating available.

I was able to access the Qantas First Lounge thanks to my Qantas Platinum status. However, I was travelling with a group of friends, so I only popped in for a bite to eat and coffee. Since Jetstar Economy Class tickets don’t include lounge access, the lounge doesn’t factor into my review.

Unfortunately, the only free seating we could find was at the gate lounges. Some of my friends ordered KFC, which took almost 30 minutes to serve. This seemed pretty common at many of the fast food outlets in the terminal, given the time of year.

During this time, Jetstar sent another text to announce they had extended the flight delay to 1.25pm. They also changed the gate from 8 to 31 without giving notice, leaving many people to realise only after boarding had begun.

Boarding commenced at 12.50pm, with Business Class and passengers requiring assistance boarding first. After this, it was ostensibly back-to-front boarding, although it became general boarding very quickly.

The Hard Product

Jetstar has 21 Business Class seats arranged in a 2-3-2 configuration on its Boeing 787-8 – similar to Qantas Premium Economy on the Boeing 787. Economy Class is in a tighter 3-3-3 layout, with a total of 314 seats.

Mood lighting is a feature of the Boeing 787, but apart from this there was very little colour throughout the cabin.

As usual, the Boeing 787 features electronic window dimmers instead of traditional window shades. This is standard for all Boeing 787 operators (much to my chagrin), although on this flight the left-side windows had a yellow tint…

Jetstar Boeing 787 Economy Class seating

I chose seat 36A, a window seat in the first main Economy cabin. The seats feature a slimline design but use softer – albeit extremely worn – leather padding compared to the Economy Class seats on a Jetstar A321neo LR.

Each seat is 17.1 inches wide, which was a little too narrow to get completely comfortable. Seat pitch (the distance between the backs of each seat) was a fairly standard 30 inches – the same as you’d get in Economy on a Qantas 737. This meant legroom was okay, but not fantastic.

Some frequent flyers find Jetstar’s 787 Economy seats particularly uncomfortable. I’m not in this camp – I found the seat to be fairly standard for Economy Class – but I was happy to get off the plane in Seoul after 11 hours.

In-flight entertainment

Jetstar Boeing 787s come with entertainment screens and USB charging outlets in Economy Class. Jetstar charges $15 extra to access most of the in-flight entertainment content for the whole flight, which includes a selection of box-office movies, games and TV shows. You can access limited things for free, such as an occasionally-wrong flight map:

The touchscreen was unfortunately very unresponsive, and the screen itself needed a clean. This was also true of the seat-back pocket. In fact, the entire cabin felt worn. Luckily, Jetstar is planning to refurbish its Dreamliner fleet in the coming years.

There is no in-flight Wi-Fi on Jetstar.

The Soft Product

The Thai-based cabin crew were efficient (as I find most Jetstar crews), and polite when called upon. The few times I saw people press the call button, they were on the ball.

Jetstar doesn’t provide pillows or blankets in Economy Class, but you can buy a “chill kit” on long-haul flights which includes a blanket, neck cushion and other amenities, for $27. The airline also sells kids’ activity packs on board for $10.

Jetstar provides free tea, coffee, and water on long-haul flights in Economy Class, serving them during the two meal service slots. I did grab a coffee during the first meal service (about an hour into the flight), although I wanted to use my meal credit later.

Throughout the flight, flight attendants came through the aisle to offer water multiple times, including outside the meal service periods.

The second meal service was about half-way to Seoul, where I used my $15 meal credit. The menu for this flight is below:

Note that there is also a couple of hot menu items on the back of the menu, in addition to the above. The full menu is available on the Jetstar website.

Firstly, the menu itself looked pretty worn out. It seemed they hadn’t replaced it since introducing the new menu last year.

My original plan was to order the beef pho cup noodles at that moment, and pay $1 to get another cup noodles about two hours prior to landing. However, the cabin crew told me it wasn’t possible to split the credit. This was despite one of my friends being able to order a soft drink at the beginning of the flight and a meal during the second service using their in-flight credit. In the end, I got a pack of vege chips with the cup noodles.

This wasn’t the most substantial or glamorous meal, although I preferred it to previous hot meals I’ve had on Jetstar. Cup noodles were a safe play, and I liked the vege chips.

Wilson McTaggart

Wilson's love of travel started from a young age, but his love for points developed after figuring out ways to travel on a gap year for less - leading naturally towards Australian Frequent Flyer! Wilson's hobbies include skiing, cricket and planning trips, both with and without points.

Wilson posts on the AFF forum as @WilsonM.