We spent a month exploring Australia, and we used Qantas for all our five internal flights between the major cities.
Qantas use Boeing 737-800’s for their domestic flights, but they are configured a little more generously than the budget layouts typically used in Europe, and they all feature a business class section at the front of the aircraft. We flew economy, but as you’ll see, it’s a cut above many economy services. Our flights varied from just over an hour to almost four hours – Australia is a big place!
As aside, and for anyone wondering why the word “Qantas” fails to obey to grammar rule that requires a “U” after the “Q,” the word is actually an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service.”
For all of our flights, we used the check in machines at the airport, where we were able to choose our seats and print our luggage labels, before taking our cases to the automated system which carried them away. In every case, the check took just a few minutes and there were no queues.
Security for internal flights in Australia had one unusual difference – liquids were no problem, so we were able, for example, to carry bottles of wine through as part of our hand luggage.
Boarding was opened for business class and higher level members of the Qantas loyalty programme, and then we were allowed to board. The seats are spacious and comfortable, and even have a recline, so rest assured you’ll be much more comfortable than, for example, on a Ryanair 737-800. The aircraft are all fitted with drop down screens, so you can choose to watch the inflight movie if you wish to. But Qantas also encourage you to download their entertainment app, which is superb and has a huge choice of TV programmes and films to watch, and also gives you detailed progress on your flight. All the aircraft have WIFI as standard and it was fast and effective.
Qantas also offers a full in flight service on domestic flights – on the longer ones, a proper, hot meal, and on shorter flights a decent snack, all with drinks and tea and coffee. There were plenty of crew and the service was excellent throughout. The flight deck team kept us information about push back, delays and with information about time of arrival and weather at destination.
Another thing worth noting was that each aircraft was spotlessly clean, both inside and outside.
In some ways, it was like going back to how flying used to be – comfy seats, great service decent food and drink and lots of information. One lovely touch that we noticed at every arrival was that one member of the cabin crew heads into the terminal first and then waits at the top of the ramp to say goodbye to all the passengers.
All in all, the best domestic flying experience we’ve had in years, and we’ll use Qantas for sure on all our future internal flights in Australia.