Review: Flying Qantas Boeing 737 Economy Class in 2025

The Boeing 737-800 has been the workhorse of Qantas’ domestic and short-haul international fleet for well over a decade. In fact, the youngest Boeing 737 in Qantas’ fleet is now more than 10 years old, while the oldest is 23 years old. The average fleet age is 16.5 years.

As a result, some of Qantas’ Boeing 737s are starting to show their age. That said, Qantas has been maintaining them fairly well, and did update the cabin interiors last decade.

Around half of Qantas’ Boeing 737-800s – the newer ones – have seat-back entertainment screens and a more modern Boeing Sky Interior. The older half does not have seat-back screens, but instead has TVs that drop down from the overhead panel.

These jets will eventually be replaced by the Airbus A321XLRs which start arriving later this year. In the meantime, what’s it like to fly on a Qantas Boeing 737 in Economy Class – as the vast majority of Qantas customers do?

In this review, I’ll share my most recent Qantas Boeing 737-800 Economy Class experience. This was on a short flight from Sydney to Canberra on one of the older Boeing 737s. But to show you what you can expect on longer flights, I’ll also share a few photos from another recent international flight on one of Qantas’ newer 737s.

Flight Details

Flight number	QF803
Route	Sydney (SYD) to Canberra (CBR)
Aircraft type	Boeing 737-800
Class of travel	Economy
Seat number	29F
On-time performance	We arrived on time
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

I booked my flight from Sydney to Canberra as a Classic Reward ticket for 8,000 Qantas Points + $77 in taxes & carrier charges. Regular airfares on this route normally start from $229 one-way.

Airport Experience

Qantas has its own domestic terminal at Sydney Airport. There’s plenty of space and, unless you’re travelling at an absolute peak period, the check-in area in Terminal 3 never really seems to feel busy.

Qantas encourages domestic flyers to check in online and keep their boarding pass on their phone. When arriving at the airport, you can scan your boarding pass at one of the self-service kiosks to print your bag tag, which you attach to your own checked luggage and take to the bag drop.

Qantas staff are on hand to assist, and there are staffed check-in counters for passengers with international connections or who require assistance. Unfortunately, the staff at the airport cannot sell you a ticket or assist with ticketing related issues.

After dropping off my bag, there was almost no wait to clear security. I could have used the priority lane for Gold and Platinum frequent flyers, but the regular Economy queue was just as short.

Qantas lounges

Lounge access is not automatically included with a Qantas Economy Class ticket, so the rating in this review doesn’t account for this. But you can get into the Qantas Club with a membership, Qantas Gold status or Oneworld Sapphire status. (If you’re not already a Qantas Club member, AFF offers a discount.)

You can also get in with a Qantas Lounge invitation, which you can get as a Qantas Silver frequent flyer, Points Club member or with various credit cards.

There’s also a Qantas Business Lounge next door for passengers booked in Business Class, as well as Platinum, Platinum One and Oneworld Emerald frequent flyers. Qantas recently refurbished and expanded this lounge.

Boarding

Last year, Qantas began using boarding groups. There are six groups, with Business and Platinum frequent flyers in Group 1, Gold frequent flyers in Group 2, and Groups 3-6 allocated based on where you’re sitting on the plane.

On my flight, the gate staff called Groups 1 and 2 to board at the same time through the right-hand “priority” boarding lane. As soon as boarding commenced, I also received a notification on my phone through the Qantas App.

They then boarded the remaining groups. The boarding pass scanners are set to automatically refuse boarding to passengers whose group hasn’t yet been called, but the gate staff did not prevent passengers in Groups 3-6 from using the priority boarding lane on the right.

The Hard Product

The Qantas Boeing 737-800 has 162 Economy Class seats, running from rows 4-30, in a standard 3-3 configuration.

Qantas Boeing 737-800 Economy Class seats

Each seat is reasonably well padded, covered in a black cloth material and has an adjustable leather headrest. The seat pitch is a fairly standard 30 inches, which means I have enough legroom for the short flight – although, it’s not overly generous.

Some people might find these seats a bit narrow – they are no more or less wide than the Economy seats on any other Boeing 737, but are about an inch narrower than an equivalent Airbus A320 Economy seat.

On my flight from Sydney to Canberra, I deliberately chose to sit towards the back of the plane because there were no other passengers sitting there. I was in 29F, which is in the second last row, and had the entire row to myself as most other passengers had chosen seats further ahead.

Unfortunately, my seat had probably seen better days. During take-off, the seat reclined by itself – without me pressing the “recline button”. The seat beside mine also happened to have an obvious wet patch on it when I boarded (luckily, nobody was sitting there).

On a longer flight, if I can get one, I’ll often choose a seat in row 4. This is the front row of Economy Class and has extra legroom as it’s right behind Business and there is no wall separating the two cabins.

There are USB charging outlets under the seat.

In-flight entertainment and Wi-Fi

Qantas’ 38 oldest Boeing 737s, which are used exclusively on domestic routes, do not have seat-back in-flight entertainment screens. Instead, there are TVs that drop down from the ceiling and usually play the news, followed by other TV shows on longer flights. You can connect your headphones to the plug in the armrest to listen to the audio, or just read the subtitles. These planes also have a tablet holder on the back of the seat in front.

I was on one of these jets between Sydney and Canberra, and there was barely enough time during this short flight to show the latest ABC News bulletin.

The other 37 Qantas Boeing 737s have TV screens on the back of each seat (or stowed in the armrest, if you’re in the front row). These jets are used on both domestic and international routes, including to New Zealand, Fiji, Palau, Samoa and Bali.

You can watch a variety of new-release movies and TV shows, or watch the moving flight map, using this system. However, the content library is now a bit more limited than it used to be.

On all Qantas 737s, you can stream additional movies and TV shows to your own device via the Qantas Entertainment App.

All Qantas 737s also offer free and fast Wi-Fi for all passengers. This is a great feature and the internet connection speeds are usually pretty good. However, the internet only works when you’re flying over Australia.

The Soft Product

The cabin crew on my Sydney-Canberra flight were cheerful, professional and managed to serve a snack to the entire cabin, despite the very short flight time. One of the flight attendants was a bit of an aviation geek, and even made time to have a chat with me.

Qantas has had its share of negative publicity in recent years, but I almost always find the on-board crew to be enthusiastic and hard-working. In my opinion, they’re one of Qantas’ greatest assets.

Snacks on shorter flights

On my flight from Sydney to Canberra, Qantas served a couple of different snacks. There was an “antipasti collection” and a pack of cheese, crackers and salami. This came with a bottle of water.

Although Qantas normally serves complimentary alcohol on afternoon flights, the Sydney-Canberra hop is just too short to serve a full drinks menu to up to 162 passengers. (You can usually get beer and wine if flying on a QantasLink Dash 8 between the two cities.)

Meals on longer flights

On longer Boeing 737 flights, including international and trans-continental flights, Qantas serves a meal with drinks. It also offers tea and coffee after the main meal service. The meal usually comes with a bread roll, chocolate or cheese & crackers, as was the case on my recent Auckland-Sydney flight:

One more thing: Although Qantas used to offer pillows and blankets on international flights, there were none offered on my recent trans-Tasman crossing. Qantas does still provide these on overnight flights, including from Perth to Brisbane or Bali-Melbourne.

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.