Qantas Airways
 

Hi i will be traveling to Melbourne,Australia from Los Angeles,California i will be traveling on Qantas Airway's i would like to know has anyone here ever traveled on Qantas and how would you rate the service like the food they serve and how do the prices compare to the other airlines,thanks.

Hi danny - food's not so great these days, but Qantas has a pretty well impeccable safety record.

What class are you going? We saved (and saved) our FF miles (135K each) and went 1st and the Skybeds and service were wonderful, and the food was quite good, considering. I slept 8 hours. We have FF miles on Alaska who are partners with Qantas. It also works with Continental and Northwest, I believe. We also flew Qantas from Sydney-Uluru-Darwin-Cairns-Sydney and had nothing but excellent, friendly service from the people along the way. You get one free connection with the FF miles and other legs are only 10K miles, so it's a good deal. We had to buy one leg since the FF seats were gone and it was quite expensive (over $350 from Darwin to Cairns--NOT first class). Book early!
Happy traveling,
Sally

Hi - I'm Australian - and probably a teensy bit biased but quite frankly I would prefer to travel Qantas than any other airline. They have a great safety record and include little things like eye masks, toothbrush, sockettes and what not as standard even in economy on long haul flights.

The food had come under some criticism of late but I think I read in the inflight mag on my last flight that they had updated and improved their menus on all flights (does anyone know if this is true?). Within Australia they have snacks during the morning and afternoon and breakfast, lunch and dinner at the appropriate times included in the cost of the flight.

On most of the long haul flights the planes now have the little screens in the back of the seats offering a far better selection of inflight entertainment.

As far as pricing is concerned I think they are competitive with most of the bigger international airlines (Lufthansa, BA, Singapore) and within Australia if you book in advance and for off peak times (ie. not the times business people fly) you can often do as well, if not better, than the budget airlines - Virgin and Jetstar..

As SnRSeattle said if you can fly first or business the skybeds are fantastic (but I'm not sure they are available on all flights - worth checking).

We recently flew LA to Sydney, Sydney to Cairns, Cairns to Melbourne, and Melbourne to LA. Compared to US Airlines at least, we were really impressed. On our transpacific flight, we got a choice of a hot meal to start, then a bag a snacks to eat at our leisure (much preferable to being woke in the night or missing the middle meal), and a choice of a hot or cold breakfast. The food was always tasty---those who do not think so should try meals (if you're lucky enough to get one) on most US carriers. Plus they gave us thoughtful extras( as a previous post mentioned), ice cream bars, liquor etc... We also had private seatback entertainment screens. We bought all of our flights as a package and thought the price was quite fair . I would definitely travel with them again. Have a nice trip.

I've flown with Qantas several times (it is, after all, the Australian airline!), both domestically and internationally.

You can't believe just how glad I was to get on a Qantas flight from Japan last year, after an absolute nightmare flight from Copenhagen with SAS.

Internationally, as far as I have observed, they're fine. The service is not as obsequious as some of the Asian airlines, (although such service is usually reserved for men) but certainly better than most of the American ones.

And Qantas safety record is outstanding. I commented in another thread recently about the difficulty that United had attracting Australian passengers after a flight from Hawaii to Sydney lost a door and a number of passengers midair.

Cetrtainly business and first class are good - but, for economy travel, I've found them just fine.

As a travel agent, I'd have to say that Qantas is my favorite airline.

Hands down, it beats anything we have in the US, and when I've had clients stranded, a serious emergency (such as a dying parent) and a hysterical client calling me from Sydney, I know I can count on Qantas to help.

That speaks VOLUMES compared to many other airlines who not only seem oblivious to the situation but actually look at it as an opportunity to gouge the customer...as in: "Oh, you booked in Class "X" seven months ago and now you need to fly home right away, and there's only Class "A" left, so taking the difference between the class you originally booked in and what we can offer you now, you owe us approx $822 more per person as well as a Service Fee of $200 for re-issuing the ticket as well as your First Born" (ok, I made that last bit up :)

Yes, I would agree the food's dropped a bit but I don't travel on a plane to eat...I can always find at least one thing that's edible on almost any flight and I carry Power Bars for emergencies! :)

Regards,

Melodie
Certified Aussie Specialist

It's a bit hard to get an unbiased view of Qantas from an Australian (we're either strongly committed or severe critics). But after just sampling the delights of China Eastern Airlines, I'll never complain about them again. Well, I'll think twice about it, anyway.

As Melodie implies, it's the people who make the difference, and I've usually found that Qantas people, even when they're screwing up, which doesn't happen too often, are human beings. Some other carriers seem to have replaces their humans with more cost-effective androids.

And yes, it's the world's second-oldest airline, and despite being one of the world's biggest (at one point its market capitalisation exceeded that of its 25% owner, British Airways) has never had a fatality.

I am neither Australian, nor a travel agent, but I have now flown Quantas twice 1994 and last month..on predicably LONG trips: Without exception I have found them, on time, polite, reasonably comfortable, (if any economy class seat could be considered "comfortable" for 14 hours :)). They've added personal TV's for the econ class and these are quite a help. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them or fly them. The food is no worse then some airlines and considerably better then others. Have a great trip.

Yes, like Neil, I was a bit grizzly about Qantas, until I flew other airlines.

I've flown to Australia from England a few times via the BA / Qantas tie in. I now seek to maximise my flights with Qantas and minimise the number with BA.

Just returned from second trip on Qantas-wouldn't go with anyone else.

I want to thank all the "wonderful" people who replied to my post about Qantas Airway's it's a pleasure to know that people are so kind about helpful.

Just flew in today after a return trip to France with Qantas.
Food... some was good and other stuff was not but I always think that it has a lot to do with where they pick up their food from as to what its like.
Service.. Brisbane to Singapore was OK on a 747 with personal TVs and happy staff. Singapore to Paris was exceptional as in the section I was in we had a fellow I guess who would be a tad "feminine" however I have never come across anyone as attentive, pleasant and helpful as this fellow and everything was done with the manners of a 5 star waiter. On the way home from Paris to Singapore we had mostly ladies who were absolutely delightful, cheerful, pleasant and a pleasure to be with. Food was ho hum but the French and Australian wine made up for that. Singapore to Brisbane we had a bunch of middle aged men who were about as disinterested as I have seen in a long time however they got on with the job even if a smile would have gone a long way in making it a better trip seeing that we had no private TV and therefore nothing could be heard from those old screens and earphones.
On the whole I prefer Qantas every time, yes I am biased but one has to take into account their terrific safety record and that to me is a wonderful plus!

I take it you were travelling first class,Liz.

Hi JohnJ - if you consider that I had 4 seats to myself all the way to Paris, 3 seats all to myself Paris - Singapore and 4 seats between myself and hubby from Singapore ( although he, hubby, has never heard of the idea of top and tailing so that 2 can sleep on the 4 seats - he just laid flat in wonderful comfort and I was scrunched up on one end) then I was indeed in first class. But no, I was in steerage class but it was one of the last, if not the last service for Qantas to Paris and there were not many on board. The crew were very sad but went out of their way to have a last jolly time and it was really great except for the drones from Singapore to Brisbane. But hey, when you get a Champagne service it sure makes you realize the difference.

I liked Qantas ... the food and the service were superior to what I've encountered with US airlines both on the trip TO Australia and on several trips AROUND Australia while I was there.

Hey,

I have just recently flown Qantas for the first time. The food was ok, not too bad. I have had better on trans Atlantic flights in the past. Hey, you're not there to eat you're there for the ride, right?

Be sure to use the eye masks and try to pick up ear plugs. I also happened to have some pain meds hanging around and that made me just sleepy enough to get about 7-8 hours of sleep in the economy section.

The best thing I liked about Qantas was the headrest, it actually bends up on the ends providing a built in pillow. This was really helpful in getting some rest.

Prices, I didn't really check, I was fortunate to use my AMEX points.

Have an awesome time, I did.

I've used them in coach and biz and found both levels very nice. Food in biz was wonderful. I usually keep alcohol to a minimum on flights, but the wines in biz were excellent. In coach, it was fine -- and better than most U.S. carriers.

Staff wonderful. Space was great in biz, adequate in coach and far better than United's long haulers. Aussies will cringe, but I also had nice flights on Air NZ, although my recollections is that coach was a bit more comfortable on Qantas.

If you are travelling in First or Business class your food will be under the stewardship of Neil Perry the owner/chef of Rockpool restaurant (and others), recently voted Sydney's best restaurant by the Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine. I,unfortunately have only travelled economy on QANTAS and the food was not at that level. Cheers!