Review of Qantas flight Hong Kong → Melbourne in Economy

Introduction

The coming 4 trip reports here document the flights I took for a 24-day (ended up being longer, stay tuned for the final trip report!!!!) school study trip in the wilderness of Australia. It meant a lot to me since this was my first time flying Qantas, my first time flying long haul, my first time visiting Australia and of course, my first time flying a foreign airline (not based in HK), which I was looking forward to a LOT.
I didn't know what to expect from Qantas though and had pretty low hopes before the flight. Stay tuned for my final verdict though!

Arrival and Check-in

Flying as a group meant I could not sustain my usual practice of arriving super last minute. We arrived 3 hours before departures and there was a bit of delay in counter opening. Only 6 counters were open, 2 dedicated to business class, meaning we had a very long wait of nearly an hour. 

One thing I must mention is that, I tried using the self check-ins. You had to answer a question about whether you have dangerous goods or not, and power banks were included as "dangerous goods". Upon selecting yes, the kiosk showed a message saying that I cannot be checked-in through the kiosk and I had to queue for the manned counters. It doesn't make a difference though, since we would have to queue for bag drop anyways.

I bid farewell to my family and headed through security. It was a busy day and took us quite some time to clear security. Not having any lounge access this time around, I just chilled around the gate area.

Gate 24 again! I really have special connections/relationships with some gates at HKIA here! (I got the same gate for my flight to tokyo!)

Lucky me for getting VH-EBV, the newest A330 in Qantas' fleet and the only one with the special "Oneworld" livery!

HKIA is definitely busier than before.

A brand new McDonald's branch opened at HKIA recently (the space it occupies used to be Cathay Pacific's "The Cabin" lounge)

I also spotted a Cathay A350-1000 heading to Manchester next to us.

Boarding

Pre-boarding was called at 21:05 and we started boarding at around 21:15.

The cabin crew were already waiting for us and welcoming us onto the plane. I walked through the Business Class cabin, known for being the only (?) business class seat in the world that allows passengers to recline during taxi, takeoff and landing.

Cabin

Economy class seats are laid in a standard 2-4-2 configuration, with nice double padding. They do look nice and are quite similar to the 2012 cradle seats on Cathay Pacific. Waiting on the seat is a pair of headphones, a pillow and a blanket.

My seat for tonight, 49B. There is a 9-inch IFE screen in front of every seat, running the previous generation Panasonic ex-2 system.

Legroom is definitely tighter than Cathay, at 31 inches. FWIW I am 175cm tall and the limited legroom does making sleeping a bit uncomfortable :/. Seat width is at 17 inches, which is less than Cathay's A330s but didn't bother me as much as the legroom.

Inside the seat pocket is a safety card and a QANTAS magazine (it was very thick!). The safety card looked super worn out already, which was quite surprisingly to see. No sickness bag for some reason, but I don't need it anyways.

We finished boarding at an astounding 20 minutes before departure. The gate was already closed by then but we had to wait at the gate until departure time.

In-flight entertainment

I checked out the in-flight entertainment. As per expected, the selection was quite bad. What's worse, the screen was SUPER laggy, which made manuvering the system super hard. There is a remote control built into the armrest, but it can only be used to switch channels.
Since the remote is built into the armrest, it is also VERY EASY to mistakenly hit the callbell. It probably went on like 500 times throughout the flight, all I could hear was "ding" "ding" "ding" going on forever. 

The moving map was not interactive. It was basic but worked fine. Overall, I was quite disappointed by the IFE and was happy that I downloaded some Netflix on my phone prior to the flight.
There is no wifi on all Qantas international flights, though they're starting to install them. 

Departure

The safety video was screened as we pushed back at 22:00. I must say, I love Qantas' safety video as it also includes a brief history of Qantas throughout.

Love how the FAs do a manual demonstration alongside the safety video. To me, it was like watching a well-choreographed dance xD

The legendary sentences addressing indigenous people living in Australia.

The captain also came on to welcome us onto the flight, stating a flight time of 8 hours and 30 minutes, shorter than normal thanks to strong tailwinds.

The best window shot I could get :/ a tradeoff for being in the aisle seat.

We took off at around 20 minutes past 10, into the darkness.

First meal

Service started with a small bottle of water.

My main meal then arrived 90 minutes after takeoff. We had 3 options: pork with rice, chicken with potatoes or a plant-based dish which I forgot about (there are no menus). I chose the pork with rice, knowing that I wouldn't get Chinese food that much in Australia. It came with a cheese & garlic bun and some mango ice cream. I went with apple juice for my drink. It is quite surprising that we didn't get side dishes, e.g.. salad to go with the meal though. 

Oh my gosh, the meal was WONDERFUL!!! The pork with rice was flavourful and tasty (though a bit too salty to me), the veggies weren't too overcooked and the balance worked perfectly. The cheese and garlic bun was also delicious. Well done to Qantas!

Beware of this when you're flying on the A330s since service patterns are a bit weird. There are 4 separate trolleys, 2 from the very front of the Economy cabin and 2 from rows 50 to the back. This is why I got served last, being in row 49. They also served me ice cream right when I got my meal, so I struggled with what to eat first.

Service is slow, but all the cabin crew were super friendly and had that special "Australian charm", being playful at times and very willing to talk with passengers. It made me feel welcomed and valued as a passenger onboard.

Inflight

I requested for an extra bottle of water since the cabin of the A330 is as dry as a desert, then managed to get 3.5 hours of shuteye on and off with an eyemask provided by Qantas. A surprising thing though is that Qantas' headphones are WONDERFUL for sleeping since they are somehow noise-cancelling :OOO

Sunrise when we were closing up onto Darwin.

Second meal

Breakfast began 1 hour and 45 minutes out of Melbourne (instead of the regular 2.5 hours before landing), which I thought was a nice gesture considering the short flight time.

2 options for breakfast: the English breakfast or fried noodles with dim sum. I picked the latter and selected some tea for my drink. The meal also came with a banana & raisin muffin.

Here's a photo of the other option, which my friend had. He said it tasted a lot better than regular airplane eggs.

The banana muffin was the higlight of the meal - it was SO tasty!! The dim sum tasted a bit off (as expected again - no airlines do dim sum right, not even the Chinese airlines) and the noodles were a bit too oily for my liking. The chicken was tender and the meal was overall quite flavourful though. Overall, I would say this meal is kinda on the above average end of Economy meals.

I watched "Five Bedrooms" during the meal service, which is supposed to be a funny sitcom but I didn't find it to be entertaining at all.

Service

I briefly mentioned this before, but I really like Qantas crew. They're friendly and charming, making small talks with passengers. Most of them are quite playful too, which I enjoy. My friends who weren't sleeping told me that the crew walked through the cabin many times, offering water and snacks to passengers who are still awake. I really appreciate their efforts in doing so (instead of only sitting in the galley and doing nothing unless a passenger requests for something). Kudos to all the crew!

Landing

Landing preparations started a full HOUR before landing and cabin crew were told to return to their seats 20 minutes before landing. A bit too early in my opinion.

We flew past the city of Melbourne. A pity that I wouldn't get a chance to explore Melbourne this time around!

We landed at around 9:00am and had a short taxi to the gate. After bidding farewell to the crew, I proceeded to the horribly strict and slow Australian customs, which took us nearly 2 hours to clear altogether. We then rushed to T1 to catch our next flight to Brisbane.