Review of Qantas flight from Sydney to Cairns in Economy

Introduction.

Hello, and thank you for reading this FR. This review will cover Qantas economy class on a B737 from Sydney to Cairns in the far north of Australia. Enjoy reading…

Just before this flight, I had taken an ANA flight from Tokyo and spent a few hours in Sydney before boarding my connecting flight to Cairns. It was good to see Sydney, as I had not been there since 2020.

At the Airport.

There are many ways to get to Sydney Airport, most notably the train, which is expensive due to the airport fee. However, I took an Uber to the airport, which I find to be the most efficient and affordable option since SYD is not far from the city. It only took about 20 minutes.

I arrived at the airport approximately two hours prior to departure, which is ample time for a domestic flight. The terminal was really quite with barely any queues. I do like the design of the terminal, with high roofs and lots of natural light. I always appreciate it when airports have spectacular design and architecture.

There were kiosks and desks available for check-in. Since there were hardly any queues, I went to a desk. The process was quick, and given that there were very few shops or restaurants on the landside of the terminal, I headed straight to security, which was also efficient as there were almost no queues.

Once airside, there were some nice shops and a food court, but given that this is a domestic terminal, my expectations weren't really high.

My gate was located towards the edge of the terminal where the building is round with windows surrounding the entire perimeter. This gave great views of the tarmac and runway, along with lots of natural light in the building. I still had over an hour till my flight starts boarding, so I spend the whole time planespotting here.

Here is our plane for our flight!

Aircraft Information

Aircraft - Boeing 737-800
Reg - VH-VXO
MSN - 33485
Line Number - 1183
Age - 22.1 years

Here are some of the photos I took. Unfortunately at this time of day, SYD is rather quiet so there wasn't as much aircraft movement.

Boarding.

I eventually got bored of endlessly looking out the window and looking like the biggest airplane nerd in the building. Boarding started shortly after though. Boarding started with business class passengers and OneWorld status members. In the course of time, I was called up.

But just as I was about to board, a massive Qantas A380 pulled out of nowhere and parked right behind our 737. This was fun to watch, look at the size difference between the A380 and the q400's parked beside it!

The friendly crew welcomed me onboard and I made my way to my seat.

Cabin and Seat.

Qantas B737-800 have 12 recliner style business class seats and 162 economy class seats. The economy seats have a width of 17.2" and a pitch of 30". All Qantas 737 aircraft have the same cabin, but about half are equipped with personal IFE screens, while the others are not. Our plane today is not though.

Here is my seat 4B. Row 4 is my pick because it is an extra legroom seat located right behind the business class cabin and is towards the very front of the plane. You get served first and your one of the first to disembark.

These seats are very comfortable in my opinion. They have good padding, a nice adjustable headrest and a descent amount of recline. Legroom here is amazing, but it may be tight in other seats.

The Flight.

Pushback commenced at around 3:25pm. Shortly after the safety video was played.

Taxi time wasn't too long and we eventually took off.

The inflight service began around an hour after into the flight. For food, there was only 1 option which is a small meal box. Along with that there is a nice selection of drinks including alcohol.

I went for a lemonade for drinks. The meal box was delicious and all, but for a 3 hour flight, I would like to see a bit more. Maybe a side dish or even another service for snacks would've been nice, but its definitely better than most US domestic flights in my opinion.

I took a nap after eating the meal. The rest of the flight was rather uneventful.

In terms of inflight entertainment options, there is fast and free Wi-Fi. It is easy to connect to and the speed is really good. I was able to watch videos on my phone with very rare buffering. Its good to have Wi-Fi on planes and I actually prefer it over an IFE screen if its free.

Around half and hour before landing, there was a beautiful sunset out of the window. Come on, these are the best views.

Soon enough, the cabin was getting ready for landing and we eventually landed at Cairns Airport.

As mentioned, because row 4 is the first row of economy, we were one of the very first to get off the plane.

 Cairns Airport isn't that big so it wasn't very long to the exit of the terminal.

That will conclude this FR. Thanks for reading!