Hello and welcome to yet another Qantas domestic flight report!
As Australia has pretty much returned back to normal in almost every aspect (except opening our international borders) Mrs Tim84 and I decided to book a week long holiday in beautiful Sydney as we hadn't been since before the pandemic.
Flight routing
- 1QF446 - Economy - Melbourne > Sydney - Boeing 737-800
- 2QF437 - Economy - Sydney > Melbourne - Boeing 737-800
We arrived at Qantas' domestic terminal about an hour before departure, curious to see if passenger traffic had picked up since our last trip to Hobart.
We checked in our luggage, printed our boarding passes, cleared security and were through to airside in about ten minutes, leaving plenty of time to wander around and have a sticky beak into the comings and goings of a post-pandemic domestic terminal.
Not this trip, sorry Tassie bird!
Grabbed a quick bite from Hungrys in the food court - unfortunately most of the outlets were still shuttered despite an obvious increase in passenger numbers.
Terminal is still very empty compared to pre-2020 levels but definitely more buzzy compared to when we flew over the Xmas period last year.
We would be departing from Gate 24 today.
Boarding began approximately ten minutes before scheduled departure time and the flight was packed, although the ground crew did a very admirable job in getting everyone on board via the airbridge and rear door, which we boarded by.
Scored one of the newer 737s with the Boeing Sky Interiors and IFEs!
Seat pitch was 31" , PTVs worked on a gate to gate basis (but BYO headphones), and the plane was WI FI enabled which I LOVE about Qantas' domestic offering.
Pretty soon we had lift off! Snack and refreshment service started about ten minutes after the seatbelt sign was switched off (a lovely carrot and hummus dip and a choice of soft drink or juice together with a bottle of water).
Inflight over country NSW.
On approach to Sydney!
We touched down right on 3pm and were disembarking from the gate approximately 5 minutes later. Great job Qantas!
Nothing much to say about the crew - they were pleasant and efficient (if a little robotic) but it's pretty hard to provide great service when wearing face masks (which all passengers and crew were required to keep on throughout the duration of the flight).
Our luggage came out at around 3.20pm and off we went to begin our week long adventures in Sydney.
Hi Tim, thanks for sharing another nice report!
Hah! Rub it in, why don't you ? (Most of the world is jealous)
I find the QF "Familiar smiles are waiting" advert in the terminal to be odd considering those "familiar" smiles are anything but familiar covered up in masks, haha.
Nice that you got one of the BSI 738s with PTVs...seems like it's a real crap-shoot getting those on domestic flights.
The carrot and hummus snack is really nice compared to anywhere else in the world right now where there typically isn't anything on such a short flight, much less a "fresh" snack.
Always happy to see reports from AU and NZ, but especially now with the border closures since this is as close as most of us around the world can get to travelling down under, haha.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comment! Sorry, it wasn't meant to come across as rubbing it in, although i am well aware that we got pretty lucky here in AUS / NZ :) hope everyone else is keeping safe at the very least !
I don't think there's any logical system to how QF organise the routings for their newer 738s... feels a bit like it's just what's available on the day haha.
We had just missed the lunch hour routing but i have heard pretty solid rumours that QF are back to doing cold lunches and hot dinners on economy! Oh well - will just have to book another holiday again and keep you posted to confirm :)
Haha, no worries , I was totally kidding, of course
Yes, I’ve heard the same. I believe they’re now serving full meals on longer flights over 3h. It’s also nice to see QF turning the IFE back on progressively after suspending IFE for over a year.