Transcontinental Qantas A330 | Australia's best domestic business suite | Melbourne to Perth
Hi. My name's Adam. I'm at the Park Royal Hotel at Melbourne Airport and today I'm going to be flying across the continent to Perth … but not in a typical narrow body 737 but in a wide-bodied A330 with Qantas in business class. So it's going to be something special. Come along and find out what the experience is like. In this video i'll show you Melbourne's business lounge, our wide-body aircraft and the business class cabin, the food and drink on offer, the Great Australian Bight and some mighty engine views and sounds. We begin our journey at Australia's second busiest airport,
23 kilometres northwest of Melbourne’s CBD. The journey will take us across the Great Australian Bight to the capital of Western Australia, Perth. The scheduled flight time is four hours, noting that the time zone in Perth is two hours behind Melbourne. Staying at the Park Royal is great for views of Melbourne airport's main runway.
There's a covered walkway from the hotel to the terminal. Business class passengers can use the premium lane for check-in, but today it's quicker to use a self-serve kiosk. After attaching your luggage tag, you just need to use the bag drop. See you on the other side of the country! There's also a premium security lane for business class passengers although today the regular queue is quite short anyway. Let's head to the lounge. There are two lounges here: a Qantas Club on the right and the business lounge on the left. Only passengers travelling in business class or frequent flyers with platinum status can use the business lounge.
The business lounge was overhauled in 2018; it has great tarmac views and is one of Australia's best domestic lounges. There's plenty of seating options. I like to sit in the northwest corner where you get the best views of the apron.
Breakfast options include fruit salad and yogurt, eggs and bacon, Pastries and pancakes. As it's still quite early, it's peak time for barista made coffee. Thank you. I go for my regular birch mueslI with a latte. There are charging points but not very convenient if you need to use your device while charging. It's easy to keep an eye on your flight but the staff will also make boarding announcements There's also a range of teas and filtered water here.
That's my aircraft. It rolled off the Airbus production line in France in 2007. It's 15 years old and is named King Valley. The bathrooms feature premium toiletries.
Time to head to the gate. The vast majority of Qantas domestic flights are operated with their 737s however they also utilise wide-body aircraft for a number of their transcontinental flights as well as on busy domestic routes such as between Sydney and Melbourne. Qantas owns both the A330-200 and slightly longer A330-300. The -300s are generally used exclusively on international flights while the -200 variant, which we'll be traveling on today, is used on both domestic and international routes. Our plane will board from gate 11. This is our aircraft.
Announcement: "Hello everyone. Qantas flight 773 through to Perth is now ready for premium boarding, we invite our business class, platinum one, platinum gold, and emerald and sapphire one world members to board through the dedicated right hand channel. General boarding will commence shortly. Just make sure that you're wearing your face once properly covering your mouth and your nose."
Qantas has a couple of different configurations for the A330. This one is used mostly on domestic flights. It seats 28 passengers in business class and 243 in economy. Seating in business is in a one two one layout. Today i'm in seat 4k. The seat features usb and universal charging points and the side console has space for smaller items and a water bottle.
There's a 16 inch HD touch screen. The crew offers everyone still or sparkling water before pushback. There's plenty of space in the overhead lockers. And cheers. Welcome on board flight QF773 through to Perth. There are individual air vents. You must have your seat belt done up low and tight during takeoff landing and whenever the seat belt sign is on. The seat features a shoulder belt like you'd find in a car. Make sure you only inflate your life jacket after you leave the aircraft.
Smoking and the use of e-cigarettes is not permitted anywhere on board. Qantas aircraft are fitted with smoke detectors including the toilet. Before takeoff, ensure your armrest is down, your seat back is upright and your tray table is stowed. One of the flight attendants asks me to remove my GoPro from the window for takeoff, so i'll film the footage handheld with my phone.
The ground crew holds up the steering bypass pin for the captain, which means we're good to go. It's only a short taxI to the east west runway we're using today. That chime on an Airbus after takeoff indicates the landing gear is retracted. Today's flight is about 1470 nautical miles or 2700 kilometres. We ask that you remain in your seat as much as possible for the duration of the flight and please do not change seats.
This aircraft is fitted with wi-fI but I couldn't get my iPhone or iPad to connect. Thankfully there's plenty of options on the IFE system. After take off, the cabin crew come around to take our drinks orders. There's a light under the console and a reading lamp.
Over ear headphones are provided. The headphone and power ports are conveniently located. Here are the seat controls. The seat has a partial recline mode that you can use during takeoff and landing. The seat can also go fully flat. There's also back massage and lumbar support buttons. There's loads of legroom. Captain: "My name is Dale Newman. In the flight deck today for our journey
across to Perth in Western Australia first officer Nicholas. Fom Melbourne now just passing the lovely city of Hamilton fairly shortly on the right-hand side Grampians mountain system, still a bit cloudy there today and shortly there once again on the right-hand side as we take Currently 20 minutes past eight in the morning. One or two light bumps expected about halfway but other than that quite fine. That's all we have for you for the time being from flight deck it's great to have you on board
with us here today. Every time we'll leave you with Sandy and our great crew in the cabin for our journey across to Perth today." There's a second smaller business cabin with six seats in front of the economy cabin. Let's check out the toilets before my drink arrives. There's only one toilet on this A330 for the business cabin whereas internationally configured A330s are fitted with two toilets in business. The toilet is clean, okay space wise and has everything you need for a four hour domestic flight.
The flight attendant poured my drink while I was in the bathroom. I wouldn't normally drink at 10am but hey, when in business class. I know this is cliche, but cheers! It's served with pretzels and almonds. You can also use this handheld controller for the entertainment system.
There's a large and sturdy tray table in here. You can move it forward and back. I decide to watch the film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The meal service starts just before 11am Melbourne time. The options are beef lasagna,
braised pork with vegetables, or a chicken breast and quinoa salad. I go for the pork fillet. We're also offered still or sparkling water or orange juice. It's served with a slice of sourdough. I'll show you the dessert later. I've closed the window blinds so I can see the entertainment screen. A few moments later. So I cleaned that up. Now for dessert. It's a lamington with jam and cream. I was going to order a latte but the crew tell me that this is a converted aircraft and is not fitted with a pod machine unlike most other A330s, so I go for a tea instead.
We've now finished the meal service and it's time to check out the other seat features. So this is in the full life flat position but as this is a domestic flight there's no pillows available so you might need to bring something to sleep on if you want to sleep. On international flights the crew will also provide bedding materials such as a mattress to go on here. There is a massage mode in this seat position - it's a pretty gentle massage but if you like that yeah why not. The Qantas magazine and flight safety card are in here. There's also a light for the seat well.
Now there's not much left to do but sit back, relax and watch my movie. With about an hour to go, we make landfall. the crew come through offering icecream. It's a
bit hard so I have to leave it a bit before digging in. I’ve certainly had my calorie intake for the day. Another cool feature of this seat is the do not disturb button, which makes your seat number glow red. This lets the crew know you don't want to be woken up for a meal service, for example.
These suites offer reasonable privacy, particularly a seat like mine which is closer to the window whereas some seats are closer to the aisle. Captain: "Here once again we're just commencing our descent into Perth at this time. We've got around about 260 or so kilometres to go um. From here, we'll be eventually towards the north so positioning south of the airfield. Nice views looking towards the south initially down towards the area there you'll see the view of the coast especially as we do that turn, landing towards the north there and also the bigger views on the left-hand side they're looking down the Swan River out towards Perth. It's a fair day, you should be able to see right there's the Rottnest Island too
off the coast standing today. It's been our pleasure having you aboard the aircraft today with us and as always we're looking forward to seeing you aboard another Qantas flight soon. We begin our descent with 27 minutes to go. So how much is the fare? Fares in business class on this route typically exceed $2000 Australian dollars but I didn't pay anything like that. I bought an economy class fare during a sale for $221 Australian dollars. That was before Western
Australia's borders had opened so there was low demand. I used frequent flyer points to upgrade to business class. It's a lot of points but I think it's worth it for a journey of this length. But with borders open, more people travelling and high fuel prices, current economy flights on this route will set you back about $330 or more. We're almost there.
This dam provides water for Perth. Welcome to Perth. We acknowledge National Reconciliation Week and pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the local lands, headquarters of our country we would also like to pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. The local time here in Perth is approximately 11:48am. As the seat belt sign is still on please remain seated with your seat belt fastened. smoking and the use of
e-cigarettes is not permitted while disembarking or throughout the terminal and just a reminder carry-on package may have lived in the overhead lockers and could fall out so please take care. I think the QantasLink livery really suits the airbus a320. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
We leave via the forward door. Flight attendant: “Thank you, bye bye.” Here's a last look at our aircraft. Welcome to Perth, sometimes said to be the world's most isolated capital city. The nearest big city, Adelaide, is more than 2000 kilometres away. An A330 from Sydney arrived just before us so it's quite busy but as my luggage was tagged priority, it comes out fairly quickly. There are free rapid antigen tests available here for interstate and overseas travellers.
So here I am safely at Perth Airport. It was a really enjoyable flight and traveling in business class on a wide body plane is a great way to travel across the country. It's the first wide-body plane i've traveled on since before the pandemic, so it was a bit of a treat to travel in business class and use points to upgrade. I would definitely recommend it if you can snag yourself a seat like that. I catch a TransPerth bus to the city. I hope you enjoyed this video - if you did, I'd be grateful if you can hit the like button and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Hope to see you soon!
2022-08-19 01:27
