Key Details

Date: 3rd August 2022

Flight No: QF644

Route: Perth to Sydney

Aircraft: Boeing 737

Cabin: Business

The Route

Perth to Sydney has long been one of Australia’s most important flight routes linking Australia’s largest city in the state of NSW with that of its West Coast Capital Perth. The route is believed to be the second busiest out of Perth Airport behind that of Melbourne and slightly ahead of Singapore having served over 1.7 million passengers during pre Covid times with demand strongly rebounding in 2022 with Australia’s domestic and International borders fully reopen. The duration of the flight path is known to vary significantly depending on number of factors – most notably the direction of travel although weather and prevailing tail winds can also slow or quicken flight time. For east bound flights to Sydney expect a flying time of approximately 4 hours with the return shy under 5 hours.

The route is currently served via 3 carriers which are Virgin Australia, Qantas and its subsidiary budget carrier Jetstar. During September there appears to be up to around 10 daily departures in both directions with Qantas and Virgin operating the lion’s share with similar amounts of services whilst Jetstar operate just 1-2 services per day. Qantas typically ply the route with mixture of Boeing 737 and Airbus A330’s however an occasional Boeing 787 is seen to facilitate Qantas’s much hyped seasonal Sydney-Perth to Rome Service. On the other hand Virgin under its new administration unfortunately do not use any widebodies on the route and now only use Boeing 737’s. Jetstar use its work horse A320 on the route with occasionally the slightly larger A321 variant also making an appearance.

Flight prices on this heavily travelled route have always been competitive although have been on the rise in recement months. Whilst Jetstar occasionally release bare bone sale fares below $200 don’t expect to see to many sales fares below $300 for Virgin or Qantas. For Virgin and Qantas reward seat redemptions expect to part way with around 18,000 points or little over double that for business plus tax. This particular fare was secured as a reward redemption as a part of Perth to Wellington booking via Sydney for 57,000 points plus $213 taxes.

Checking In at Perth

For this particular flight I arrived at the airport very early for a domestic flight – in fact over 3 hours early. I was eager to get away after the drama and chaos of the previous day in Perth where severe storms caused a major power failure at Perth Airport. Airport officials made the unprecedented decision to ground all departing flights for much of the afternoon and evening after backup generators failed and left much of the passenger terminals plunged into darkness and airlines and the airport struggling to process passengers. After the cancellation of my flight and many hours on the phone to Qantas trying to rebook my 2 flight trip to Wellington, this morning was going much smoother.

 I arrived at Perth’s own domestic Qantas Terminal 4 around 8 am with plenty of time to spare ahead of an 11.05am departure. This gave me ample time to spend in Qantas’s Business Class Lounge prior to the flight and even time to visit the busier Qantas Club for comparison’s sake. In Recent years Qantas have expanded to move all their presence to the old “domestic side” of Perth’s airport taking over the adjacent Terminal 3 for many of its intra-state WA flights and its subsidiary Jetstar’s interstate services. Qantas flagship international Flights to London and trusty service to Singapore also operate out of a custom built departures area in the terminal 4 that caters exclusively to Qantas international flights proving seamless connectively with the Airlines feeder flights into Perth bound for the flagship 17 hour trek to London.

The Check in process at Perth Airport for Qantas has always been arguably amongst the best I have ever experienced in Australia on multiple occasions for both domestic flights and even the epic flight that I took to London in April 2019. For those seeking a quick and efficient check in, I can certainly attest to that using the dedicated kiosks to print of a boarding pass and print of a bag tag of which I immediately proceeded to the automated bag drops whereby my bag was tagged and off to Sydney within minutes. Manned check in was still available for those who prefer and staff on hand to help passengers who might have had any difficulty placing the bags correctly on the conveyor belts. I was checked with bags dropped and ready to proceed through security within only several minutes of arriving at the airport. Despite expecting the terminal to be very busy clearing a backlog of passengers affected by yesterdays cancellations the line for security was still fairly short and ended up from curbside to airside within 10 minutes.

After hearing recent horror stories about passenger processing times in Sydney and Melbourne I was pleasantly surprised how easy the process was although that is not to say the afternoon before would have been chaotic with passengers unable to get to the gate with security screening having no power!

Qantas Business Lounge in Perth

On today’s flight I had access to the higher end Business Class Lounge at Perth’s Domestic Qantas Terminal courtesy of flying Business. On arrival at the lounge, I was swiftly greeted by friendly staff members who are more than happy to process your lounge entry or otherwise eligible passengers are free to self-scan there own boarding passes to gain entry. In the lounge there was plentiful of comfortable and varied seating options with some partially obscured views of the apron.

Food available for the late Wednesday morning departures over east consisted of self serve buffet serving popular continental breakfast favorites in addition to barista made coffee freely doing the rounds.  Unfortunately, unlike it its international counterparts alcoholic bar service is not available around the clock and does not commence to 12pm. For those don’t mind having a cheeky morning beer or glass of sparkling this might be disappointing but the norm for domestic Australian lounges. Free and fast Wi-Fi is also available but may not be necessary for many Australian passengers with 5G mobile reception available at Perth Airport. After an enjoyable few hours or so having breakfast and a well-made flat-white I found it quickly time to board my flight taking us across to Sydney.

Seating in Business Class

Today’s flight was on a typical Boeing 737-800, the workhorse behind most of Qantas and Virgin’s services between Australia’s capital cities. Qantas does offer wide-body A330 services from Perth on some of its coast to coast services to Sydney and Melbourne and occasionally Brisbane however all other capitals are generally serviced by the smaller Boeing aircraft. Qantas’s Boeing 737 has a 3-3 economy layout with a small 3 row 2-2 Business Cabin at the pointy end of the plane. Today I was seated in a Business in seat 3F which was one of the few remaining seats left that I selected online free of charge prior to checking in. Unlike the first row in Business those in this row you are free to store your carry on under the seat in front however be mindful that the passenger in front may recline or yourself reclining means intruding on the economy passenger seating directly behind as there was no bulkhead.

Qantas Business Class seats on the 737 come equipped with comfortable leather recliner seats with a generous 94cm (37in) seat pitch and up to 56cm (22in) width between arms. Whilst they are more than adequate and perfectly comfortable for daytime trips across Qantas domestic, Trans-Tasman and short-haul international network they are far inferior to Qantas’s A330 1-2-1 Domestic Business class Class Cabin. These flights come equipped with The Vantage XL seat, manufactured by Thompson Aero Seating which go lie-flat and offer far more personal space and storage capability in what some would say are their mini ‘suite’ like design.

Whilst certainly a step up from economy, the seat itself is nothing mind-blowing and may only be worth it on reward redemptions as opposed to paying a full cash fare worth many times the cost of economy. Paying anything more than twice the price over economy for this business class seat we wouldn’t consider good value. Unfortunately the flight I had originally booked to take me to Sydney was indeed on an A330 so naturally it was disappointing to learn that the new flight had a downgraded business class experience.

Whenever flying Qantas between Perth and the East Coast Capitals I would always recommend booking A330 services where available for a more comfortable experience both in economy and business but be aware of possible late aircraft changes.

Inflight Service and Food and Beverage

This morning’s service to Sydney was absolutely a full flight due to a combination of strong demand for travel post Covid and a scramble to rebook thousands of passengers who had flights cancelled the previous day. On this flight, the cabin crew certainly had there work made out for them and whilst professional at all times naturally such a full flight meant service times did take longer even for Business Class.

Disappointingly, no pre departure drinks were offered on this flight, not even water. I wasn’t entirely sure if Covid was the usual excuse for cost cutting in disguise but for whatever reason this doesn’t cut it for business class. This is especially so on a flagship coast to coast service when Virgin offered pre departure sparkling on 1.5 flight from Brisbane to Canberra only several weeks after this flight.

Seating in the last row of Business and indeed the last seat to be offered food and drinks rounds don’t assume you will get your desired meal choice. On this particular occasion this is exactly what happened. It is perfectly understandable that excess meals shouldn’t be loaded just to guarantee passengers can have whatever choice they want, however perhaps a system where customers could opt to reserve a meal if they wish would address this dilemma and help professionalize the business class dining experience and help to reduce waste.

Service began approximately half an hour after takeoff with crew coming around to personally take post departure drink orders. I asked for the sparkling wine on offer which was a Grant Burge Pinot Noir Chardonnay which comes in a neat piccolo bottle. Retailing at around $25 a bottle in Australia its probably one fanciest you’ll find on a regular domestic Australian carrier flight but of course far behind what you would expect on a flagship international carrier.

I received the only remaining option for lunch which was the Lamb Shank which was tender and tasty and came accompanied by sour dough bread and lemon cake which was helped washed down by a tasty Little Creatures Pacific Ale. All in all, the meal served was reasonably tasty and well portioned and in line with what I would expect with domestic business class catering. During the remaining few hours of the flight, the crew did several rounds offering the several red and white wines on offer although for anything else passengers had to largely ask the crew who were happy to oblige. Overall the cabin crew were professional and service was good, albeit a little slow and not overly personalized although I don’t objectively think this was necessarily the fault of the crew but just staffing demands and high volume of passengers.

Entertiament

Unlike a number of previous domestic flights on Qantas, this Qantas Boeing 737 did come equipped with seat back or in arm-rest IFE for Business class passengers. I was not able to confirm whether economy seats also came equipped. Unfortunately I found the screens to be old and small, with a poor responsiveness and the reflectiveness from sunlight making it hard to use or easily view content. For this reason I didn’t bother using the IFE aside from viewing the moving map and focused on enjoying the business class service instead. Aside from seat back IFE Qantas also has its reasonable decent BYO streaming service is available that has a selection of movies and tv shows in addition to a flight map. For those reliant on a good entrainment to get through a longer flight I would definitely recommend bringing your own device loaded with content just incase you don’t fancy Qantas’s limited offering.

A real highlight of this flight is its fast free in-flight Wi-Fi which is more than adequate for browsing the web and keeping connected with social media. It was impressive to access detailed information on the journey and be able to track the flight’s path on Flight Radar 24 whilst airborne at 40,000 feet!

Arriving in Sydney

After nearly 4 hours in the air and winding the clock forward 2 hours onto daylight savings time we approached our descent over Botany Bay into Kingsford Smith International Airport for a landing just after 5pm. On arrival to a unusually warm winter evening into Australia’s largest city, it took around 20 minutes for luggage to finally arrive at the baggage belts. With my bag coming out around ‘middle of the pack’ I couldn’t observe any real priority that had been tagged to my luggage so there was no real perks to flying business class in this regard on this occasion.

Summing Up

Overall the merits and advantages of flying Business Class on a domestic Australia flight must be weighed up against a variety of factors – most notably cost, flight duration and possibly most importantly aircraft type. In most cases when flying on a narrow body aircraft such as in this case on a Qantas 737, passengers should expect something more accustom to premium economy on an international flag carrier which is certainly a comfortable step up from economy but neither comparable to International business class operated by widebody aircraft. This expectation turned out to very much in line with the experience on this flight. For us this flight offered the benefit of premium lounge access, more personalized service and improved dining and drinks selection than economy and a more comfortable seat with greater leg room.

Sure it was a pleasant upgrade than flying economy but would it be worth the cash price sometimes upwards of $2,000 and many times the cost of coach which is already all inclusive on Qantas? We’d say absolutely not! However if redeemed as a Qantas Classic Flight Reward for around 40,000 points all in and just double the points of an economy redemption than this is definitely a good investment to outlay some points on!

In any case look out for Qantas A330 services on the route and if you can snag a Business Classic Reward Redemption on one of those your sure to get exceptional redemption value!