#32 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
176 reviews
Hello and welcome to the 2nd review in this series.
We usually try to take advantage of our son's breaks from preschool to take a trip. We hadn't been back to Australia for 8 years, so winter break in February was a perfect time to leave the northern hemisphere for summer down under!
After spending a few days in Sydney staying on Bondi, enjoying the beach, visiting with friends, and exploring kid-friendly activities around Sydney and the Blue Mountains, we were off to our next destination: the tropical north!
We'd never been to Queensland before, so I was really looking forward to it. I was especially excited to check off a major bucket list item—a visit to the Great Barrier Reef.
Reviews in this series:
We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before departure, which was plenty of time for a domestic flight. The landside part of the Domestic Terminal is quite nice with tons of light, modern design, and lofty ceilings. I like the architecture better than the International Terminal, which feels darker with lower ceilings.
We'd checked in on the app ahead of time, but still needed to drop off baggage. This only took a few minutes as there was no wait at the Qantas Business class check-in.
Security was also quick through the Business/Priority lanes. Once airside we headed to the lounge, which was coincidentally, and conveniently, located right across from our flight's gate.
Upstairs, the entrances to the Qantas Club and Business lounge are on opposite sides of the escalators. In Qantas hubs and larger stations, there are multiple levels of lounges. In Domestic terminals, like here in Sydney, there is usually a separate Qantas Club and Business lounge. The Qantas club is accessible to passengers with paid club memberships as well as those with oneworld Sapphire status flying in Economy.
Access to the Business lounge is reserved for passengers with Business class tickets and those with top-tier oneworld Emerald status. From my understanding, there isn't much of a difference between domestic Qantas Clubs and Business lounges, except maybe that Business lounges tend to be a bit less crowded.
The Business lounge is huge, with many different seating areas and plenty of light from large windows with great views of the hangars and tarmac.
It was not particularly busy that morning so there was plenty of choice for seating.
We easily found a nice spot near the windows.
I like the lounge's design with the aboriginal art-inspired accents throughout.
Our aircraft to Cairns was parked right below us.
Food options were decent, but nothing overly fancy. From what I remember seeing there were hard-boiled eggs, bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans, salads, yoghurts, pastries and breads, cold meats, fruits and crudités. Definitely a step above US domestic lounges, but below international Business lounges.
Note that alcoholic drinks are not available in the lounge before noon—oh well, no morning mimosa for me I guess! I'll manage to survive.
Boarding passes indicated boarding at 9:10AM for a 9:30 flight, which I found to be a bit tight. We headed down from the lounge just a few minutes before.
While Qantas are currently trialling boarding by Groups on certain domestic routes, there were no boarding groups or zones at the time of our flight. Boarding began with Business class, oneworld Emeralds, and oneworld Sapphires all at once through the Priority lane, which sounds like it would be chaotic, but in reality was perfectly fine. I think the main reason for this is that there are much less high-level frequent flyers outside of the US. If you boarded Business/First, Sapphires, and Emeralds, all at once in the US, it would be mass pandemonium as that would consist of at least half of the passengers on the aircraft.
Though quite a few passengers boarded ahead of us, we were the first in the Business cabin.
The Qantas domestic 737s have 12 cradle recliner Business class seats in a standard 2-2 layout. Seats are 20" wide between armrests, and have a 37" seat pitch. This is essentially the same type of cabin you'd find on domestic flights within North America–much more comfortable than European short-haul Business class.
The 37" seat pitch gives plenty of legroom, but is on the low-end for cradle recliner seats, which are more typically pitched at 38" or more.
As mentioned, these are cradle recliner, rather than standard recliners, as they have full legrests and footrests, allowing for a comfortable cradle position.
Each seat has access to a universal 110v AC power outlet, as well as a USB port.
An inflight magazine! These are super rare since the pandemic.
I was impressed that Qantas provided noise-cancelling headphones for domestic flights. This is a nice amenity to have, especially as I've stopped travelling with bulky over-ear headphones due to the space they take up. The provided headset can be used for the overhead entertainment or with your own tablet as it's a standard 1-prong plug that comes with a 2-prong adapter for the aircraft's entertainment system.
While there were no seatback screens on this aircraft, it was equipped with free high-speed Viasat Wi-Fi and a streaming entertainment system.
Both the Wi-Fi and streaming IFE are available from gate-to-gate.
There's a good amount of content, including movies, TV series, documentaries, music, audio books, and children's programming.
The flight looked to be close to 100% full, and boarding went on past departure time. I was not surprised as boarding only 20 minutes before departure is really tight. Qantas board using both the forward and rear doors out of some gates, but that was not the case on this flight. I assume when dual-door boarding happens, that starting only 20 minutes ahead of departure is more feasible.
We ended up pushing back about 15 minutes late, not bad at all.
It was a short taxi to the departure runway and we were off.
The arrival time into Cairns was updated in the Qantas app shortly after we took off.
Some information regarding the free Wi-Fi and streaming in-flight entertainment played on the overhead screens as we climbed.
Meal service began about a half hour into the flight. The options were a mix of breakfast and lunch fare, which I found odd. There were 2 options of mains, served with a danish on the side. I don't remember what the options were, but I went for a sandwich with a side of salad. It seemed a bit light for a 3h flight, but was fresh and tasty.
Funny enough—though it happens regularly—my 5-year-old son's pre-ordered child meal was larger than my lunch, haha.
Cabin crew were very friendly and attentive and offered drink refills throughout the flight.
It was great to have IFE on such a long domestic flight, though it would be nice to have a tablet holder at eye-level.
The free Wi-Fi worked quite well throughout the flight and notably allowed me to geek out of Flightradar24 😁
Getting close!
The lush tropical landscapes of northern Queensland are very different from those of the more temperate climate in New South Wales.
We began our descent near the mouth of the Russell River just south of Cairns.
The beautiful green and mountainous coastline reminded me a bit of Costa Rica.
Absolutely gorgeous approach into Cairns from the north.
Looking towards Barron Gorge and the Kuranda rainforest, with the Barron river in the foreground.
We arrived at the gate in the domestic terminal about 10 minutes behind schedule.
Last view of the seats on deplaning.
Nice view of our bird from the terminal.
Welcome to Cairns!
Baggage only took about 15 minutes to be delivered.
Wow, I don't think I'd seen a Fokker 100 in over a decade! Such a rare aircraft these days, but apparently still common in Australia.
As the airport is pretty close to the city centre, a taxi to our hotel was only about $20 and took about 10 minutes.
Beautiful oceanfront view from our hotel room right on the Esplanade.
A very nice domestic flight on Qantas' workhorse 737-800. Cabin crew were lovely and took good care of everyone. Free fast Wi-Fi always scores high for me, and the streaming IFE had a good amount of content. The catering was nice and fresh, but I found the meal to be a bit light for a 3h flight, especially since I hadn't breakfast in the lounge to save room for the meal onboard. Overall, in my admittedly limited experience, I find flying domestically within Australia to be a lot more pleasant and less stressful than flying within the US.
11 Comments
They make it sounds so fancy: “Lounge Precinct.” The ambience/design of the Business lounge is also a lot nicer than what I remember of the Qantas Club, even if the offering is pretty basic. I always liked how close the planes are to the building at the domestic terminal, the wide-bodies almost touch the windows.
One nice thing about QF is that they only have a single mainline narrow body product so at least the product consistency is guaranteed if flying a B737. Those seats are definitely tight, the guy in the other window seat has his knees on the back of the seat in front of him; would be tough to get these on a SYD-PER.
No PDBs are offered on domestic flights? You would expect QF J to be better than US domestic first since their Y product is so superior, but agree that the catering is very underwhelming for such a long flight. It’s nice that they at least offer CHML as an option even on domestic flights, his meal definitely looks better than the sandwich.
Exactly, the consistency is key, QF serve meals on most flights over 1.5hrs and the 737 cabins are all basically the same---the only difference is if you'll have one with PTVs or not since it's about a 50/50 chance. I don't mind either way as long as the streaming IFE works.
LOL...for me it's the opposite..."Precinct" brings images of NYC police precincts to my head ...that's the first thing that pops up in my head when I hear that word haha
Yes, decor and ambiance seems to be one of the main differentiators
Yeah that guy was slouched way down...not super representative of the space, but taller people will find it somewhat tight. Still much better than Y of course, except maybe Exit rows
Doesn't seem like it! There was no PDB on any of my domestic flights. That's definitely one area where they could improve. Then again, there are complex regulations on alcohol in Australia so I wonder if that may have something to do with it.
I think in general QF do better than US carriers on short-haul with consistency...while the portions may be light, there are fresh meals in J on most flights over 1h whereas in the US it's more like 3.5h. Also in just my small sample of 3 domestic flights, I find that QF have better and higher-end ingredients, even on short flights, whereas US carriers are more oriented to quantity than quality.
Yeah this was great...for him anyway haha. We were on AS in F just yesterday and I again lamented the lack of CHML for pre-order, even on INTL flights.
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Blasphemy! On a serious note, I wonder why they do this, AC does the same. A morning mimosa would hit the spot perfectly
The lounge looks nice in general, as you mention looks better than the domestic US lounges, gives me similar vibes to the flagship in Miami, not sure why.
I am fan of the maroon colors on the cabin! The cradle position looks good.
Very impressive around the noise cancelling headphone on a sub 3:10 hour flight
Looks amazing! Impressed with the catering as well.
Woah the Fokker 100! Very rare to come across. Fantastic views on descent into Cairns, some place I have always wanted to go.
Qantas seems very good on this flight. Would love to try out their domestic cabins soon. Thanks for sharing Kevin
I wanna say it has something to do with Australian laws on serving alcohol, but that's usually a state-by-state thing, so I imagine they adapt their policy to the strictest local laws for simplicity. I could be completely wrong, of course.
Indeed, there's definitely that more elegant/premium feel that is similar to Flagship lounges
I like it too. I think it's a nice change from the usual blues and greys on planes. Plus it reminds me of wine so that's always nice haha
They even had then on shorter 1.5h flights. Very nice to have
I highly recommend it...while the city itself is small, there's so much to see and do around Cairns with the beautiful rainforests, beaches, and of course the Great Barrier Reef. For those who have only been to NSW or VIC, Northern QLD feels like a whole other country.
I would have also loved to fly the A330 Business cabin, but it wasn't operating on any of the routes I did. And the new A220 was inaugurated during our trip, but they were only based out of MEL in the beginning so no luck there either.
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Hope to see some tourist images in next report.
Haha yes, well put. Qantas struggled a lot during and since the pandemic as Australian tourism was especially hard hit with borders being shut for so long. But one can tell that Qantas are trying to differentiate themselves as the premium airline, even if some cost-cutting is still evident.
Cairns was amazing! The beautiful scenery on landing is a nice preview of the gorgeous nature in the area. Between the rainforests, beaches, and the Great Barrier Reef it's definitely one of those places you have to visit one in your life. I'll definitely be back!
I did expect better food offerings (possibly a hot meal -- considering the flight was 3 hours in length and that even I got a hot snack on BNE-SYD in economy), especially in business class. Free wifi as usual is a blast and significantly faster than wifi on other airlines, which is greatly appreciated.
Still, I do very much enjoy QF; they are definitely a more premium airline than VA & Rex, though I think their international product is even better than their domestic one with better food & service.
Cairns is such an underrated place that I would very much like to visit (sadly it has been harder to reach CNS now after CX and HX both scrapped direct flights), enjoy your trip & looking forward to more QF trip reports!
I did as well. I think it may have been a smaller portion because of the 9:30AM departure time. I believe the other option was a hot option--an omelette I believe--but I always find omelettes on plane boring and plain so I didn't go for it.
Indeed. Viasat Wi-Fi is as good as it gets, with the exception of Starlink, which is very rare still.
Hopefully these will come back soon. SQ just started up CNS service last month, and hopefully more airlines will follow. There were definitely a lot of Chinese in CNS when I was there---so much so that our tour to the Great Barrier Reef was done in both English and Mandarin! So I wouldn't be surprised to see some nonstop flights from HKG soon in addition to Mainland China.
Thanks for your comments!
MU ran a flight from PVG during Lunar New Year, might just turn into a seasonal service since they restarted BNE as well
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