Best onboard customer experience | Qantas A330 Business Class | Auckland - Brisbane

There are several airlines operating this route that also offers Business Class, one of the closest competitor would be China Airlines, the other is our national airline Air New Zealand but anyone reading my review about them would have known what my opinion is about their Business Class hard product.

There have been many horror stories over the past couple of years when it comes to Qantas, and the flag carrier hasn’t been able to restore its reputation or regain public perception of its tarnished image. So I’m going to give them a try and see how horrible they truly are, spoiler alert, it’s not what you might expect.

CHECK IN

As with any full service airline, a dedicated check in queue was available. It was quick and within minutes I was through security and immigration with my fast track. I headed over to their lounge which is located next to the Emirates lounge and Auckland Airport’s own Strata Lounge.

LOUNGE

The Qantas lounge does look tired and in need of a good refresh, there are some hot and cold buffet options but it wasn’t anything extensive, while I do criticize Air NZ for not consistently providing hot food options for their lounge, they do come out better when it comes to the number of options available, they offer some cold buffet and 2 hot food options, which isn't that much more impressive than what Air New Zealand was offering, although Air New Zealand only brought their hot food out at certain hours.

The hot food options were curry and potato, by the time I went to grab them the curry had already run out and there were only some potatoes left. I got some of that and a few slices of tomatoes and 1 remaining slice of cucumber on the buffet bench which was very sad looking and it was not good enough when the lounge was packed with people wanting to grab something to eat. There was no label of any kind so I wasn’t sure whether they are suitable for my dietary requirement, which is a big issue for me, this isn't an issue for all the buffets I have been to, and it's a very simple thing to do, so I'm not sure why this is not being done.

There are alcoholic beverages but they were not stored on the bar bench along with their other beverages, those refrigerators were taped so either it was broken or they didn’t bother to place them there.

The lounge location wasn’t very ideal either, with a view towards the building’s roof and a bunch of air conditioning units is not really a good set up, but that’s more of Auckland Airport’s poor planning rather than Qantas’ fault. Overall, the lounge felt more like a dysfunctioning place all around.

FLIGHT

Qantas has a good Business Class hard product in comparison to some of the other competitors flying this route. Not long after settling in, I was greeted by the crew and he took some time with each and every passenger to get to know the purpose of their travel and have some of that personal interaction. This is a huge winning point for me as I have flown a few different Business Class products over the past couple of years and have yet to receive any service comparable to this and it did come as a bit of a shock given how poorly people have criticized Qantas.

On my seat was a pair of noise cancelling headphone and a small bottle of water. This seat has a good amount of storage, although not private so you shouldn’t store anything valuable as people can easily walk past and grab it. There is ample of open storage space whether to put your devices or drinks, with a partition to give a sense of privacy from others.

Shortly after takeoff, I was served a tray with my pre-ordered vegetarian meal. The main was some beans with tomato sauce, carrots, cauliflower, and rice with raisins, which was flavorful but the portion wasn’t very significant which is the only criticism I have. For deserts it was a vegan citrus cake which was nice as well. Overall I wasn’t being let down much in terms of how it tastes, only that I wish there was more variety and portions such as an entree or fruits given that this would not even be significant for an Economy class catering.

After the meal service, a crew member noticed me shooting some videos and we had a bit of a chat, I mentioned that I’ll be heading over to Japan and Korea which later on during the flight prior to landing she walked past and told me to enjoy my trip, another great example of the personalisation and interaction that we were able to have with the crew on board that makes it so much more memorable.

The movie offering was fine, I find it hard to find things given a lot of it was hidden in sub menu which was not very obvious, if you are not a tech savvy person it would be a struggle to navigate through the menus and finding your way around, that's one thing I think is the biggest downfall of this system. The flight map is static which lacks the details you may find on other modern IFE systems but it is an older product so I wouldn't necessarily expect it to have the best system out there, if it was their newer aircraft or recently been retrofitted I wouldn't find this to be acceptable. Their touchscreen is about as useless as it could be, it barely recognises my touch and it takes like half a dozen taps to do one action so I mainly used the remote which was fortunately working much better.

I was able to take a short nap and tried out the flat bed, I found the bed to be very similar to what I’ve experienced on Malaysia Airlines, which wasn’t really a good thing due to the seat being lowered significantly when turning into a flat bed and it felt like I was laying on the floor. The lack of pillows and blankets provided during the flight also made the bed to be uncomfortable to sleep in, maybe it was due to the relatively short flight time, however I wouldn’t think a pillow placed on each seat would be too much of an ask and it would probably make the seat to be more comfortable and give it a bit more of a premium experience.

CONCLUSION

I left the flight feeling very positive, the crew were fantastic and the best I have ever had on any flights that I’ve taken throughout my life, this is exactly what I would expect from a full service airline and especially one with a reputation of great customer service, which some airlines claim the title but failed to deliver to this extent.

The hard product is good enough and I wouldn’t complaint for a relatively short trans-tasman flight, but the real test would be on a long haul flight where they turn it down, whether any mattress or padding is added given that I wouldn’t find the seat alone would be comfortable to sleep in without any sort of extra padding. The true window (closer to the window not the aisle) seat will be preferable when it comes to additional privacy as it has a partition to block off the view towards your neighbour which will also reduce interruption when people are walking past.

Catering can definitely do with more improvements as the biggest issue I’ve got is the portion, whether that’s the individual meal or the variety of selections within your tray. Especially for a Business Class product, the portion seems to be lacking quite a bit, some bread or fruits in addition would have really made it a bit more filling.

Qantas is offering Premium Economy price for their Business Class product for this route, and while I can think of another airline that can compete with them in terms of service and hard product (AKA China Airlines), the extra price of $400-$500 which is about 70% extra on top of what I’ve paid on Qantas is non sensical and I would definitely jump on board Qantas again even if their offering remains unchanged simply for the unbeatable value.

ISSUES

Now while I didn’t have any faults with this particular flight, I did have to deal with their customer support for a potential flight that I wanted to book. It was a codeshare flight to fly back to Auckland but I discovered that there was an issue with the display of the seat map which was misleading. The particular airline I wanted to book is LATAM, which flies the 2-2-2 business class configuration, but due to some issues with their website, I wasn’t able to access their booking portal neither does my friend so I wasn’t able to confirm the seating, but upon browsing their website, it shows that they have a newly refurbished Business Class cabin which is a 1-2-1 configuration. As I wasn’t able to look at the seat map on LATAM booking portal, I assumed that they have been operating the new cabin on this route, but right before I got another friend based in Melbourne who was able to access to make the booking, I asked her to check the seat map and I was surprised that it was showing the old 2-2-2 configuration, and checking other dates it was all showing the same cabin type.

I called LATAM and they have confirmed that they only operate the old 2-2-2 layout for this route, and I informed them that Qantas is showing a different seat map, but they told me that it was Qantas that has to deal with the issue as it was on their system. I then called Qantas, only to be told it wasn’t their problem as it is a codeshare flight and we are responsible for checking with the operating airline. So I called again where another agent responded the same way, I told her that I was able to select the seat so why should I be calling LATAM to confirm if they are showing it and allowing me to book it, this is misleading in every way given that I was about to book a Business Class product that does not reflect the actual product that is in service, and the seat I will be booking for doesn’t exist, or at least I will be having a seat mate next to me assuming that particular seat in that particular area is free during the time of my booking and they were able to match it. After I told the staff that I was able to select and confirm the seat, she hung up on me, which was very unprofessional and doesn’t help the fact that they are not bringing this to the attention of the people who are actually responsible for making the change happen.

I called the third time and this time the call centre staff told me to file the complaint on the Qantas website, which I did, and on the day of my departure which was at least 2 months after I file the complaint, the seat map was still incorrect and there was no response from Qantas.

I am not blaming the call centre staff for the error, because I know that they have no knowledge or power to make the change, but they should have escalated this to someone, or directed me to someone who may have the connection to get this issue sorted. I do blame them for the lack of action and the bad attitude, especially hanging up on a call because they didn’t have the patience or will to want to help their customers, which is in my book a big no no.

A lot of the complaints did direct towards the call centre staff, partly due to the pandemic and cancellations which have caused a lot of issues in themselves, but this is a completely different issue that needs a different kind of solution. If your flight is not disrupted in any way, I wouldn’t have many worries about your experience being negative, but if you in any way have to deal with the call centre staff, I cannot say the same that you will have the same outlook for your image of Qantas as a brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZiHNXxqxqs