Qantas boosts international capacity, wet lease Finnair aircraft

[evanb]

Putting another A380 out SYD sounds great to me. The business class seat on a QF A380 is so much more comfortable than the horrible no recline AY business class seat.

The AY seat is imo only suitable for short day flights, it is horrible if you want to sleep as the mattress topper doesn't attach, the seat belt retracts tight making it difficult to roll-over, the angle favours sleeping only on one side and it is very hard for anyone with knee or back issues to return to seated position with nothing to get purchase on whilst trying to crawl out of the foot well.

Keep in mind that this is temporary. It's only scheduled through 10/8, coinciding with A380's 4x/week return to SYD-DFW from 11/8.

 

[hutch]

Putting another A380 out SYD sounds great to me. The business class seat on a QF A380 is so much more comfortable than the horrible no recline AY business class seat.

The AY seat is imo only suitable for short day flights, it is horrible if you want to sleep as the mattress topper doesn't attach, the seat belt retracts tight making it difficult to roll-over, the angle favours sleeping only on one side and it is very hard for anyone with knee or back issues to return to seated position with nothing to get purchase on whilst trying to crawl out of the foot well.

Quite a spilt on the AY seat... I enjoy it. Have flown it several times.

But can't beat an A380 (except when they go tech).

 

[Katie]

Post from Analytic Flying on X, that the Finnair 332 being replaced with an A380 from mid-June.

Big change with Qantas's Sydney-Singapore flights due to ongoing Finnair industrial action:
QF291/292 (Finnair operated) cancelled through 10/8; 1x/week (Th) remaining for positioning
Replaced with 6x/week QF81/82; big news is it'll be A380 5x/week from 16/6!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1927267958641881110

And I'm on a Thursday QF291 in July. Oh well.

 

[aaa99]

Lots of first class availability on QF82 btw. Get in quick

 

[SYD]

Lots of first class availability on QF82 btw. Get in quick

They weren't there earlier...!

Pity I'm pretty much booked out for the rest of the year....

 

[FenderQF]

Just flew QF82 and very disappointed that it wasn’t the AY metal or the 380. The 332 we flew on was subpar and with one lavatory saw quite the traffic jam. Not to mention the galley noise!

 

[dairyfloss]

Just flew QF82 and very disappointed that it wasn’t the AY metal or the 380. The 332 we flew on was subpar and with one lavatory saw quite the traffic jam. Not to mention the galley noise!

Yeah, they shouldn’t be putting those domestically configured 332s on a relatively premium route like this. Shorter lengths out of AU like PER<>SIN ok, but not so much for east coast into Asia.

 

[Flyingwombat]

I recently flew in April SYD SIN LHR in premium economy on award and got the AY flight up to SIN before picking up QF1. AY staff were great. Unfortunately now our economy booking SYD SIN CMB in July has just changed from AY on first sector to QF82 but it is the 380… we are sorry not to get the pair of seats but the big old lumbering double decker will be a novelty.

 

[Bbjai]

332 Today to Singapore on the QF81. Late for catering loading as well…

 

[Scooty]

QF291 (SYD-SIN) on Thursday 19th June was on the Finnair A330-300. No airbridge for this one, bused out to the tarmac. Cabin crew for J class seemed to be understaffed - realtively poor service on this one, they were under the pump. First time with the chair flat beds - I actually liked it, juries out if better than standard flat beds. They did feel more private and felt larger around the shoulders, foot well a little snugger perhaps

 

[evanb]

Based on updated NW25-26 scheduled it now seems as though there will be four Finnair A330s, with two operated by Finnair under wetlease and two operated directly by Qantas. Furthermore, indications from Qantas are that Finnair have settled their crew issues and will operated both aircraft.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1938001148264472938

 

[SYD]

Based on updated NW25-26 scheduled it now seems as though there will be four Finnair A330s, with two operated by Finnair under wetlease and two operated directly by Qantas. Furthermore, indications from Qantas are that Finnair have settled their crew issues and will operated both aircraft.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1938001148264472938

Which is what we were speculating re the introduction of a QF operated AY A330 doing the HNL run. Has there been any official word from QF?

Also, aren’t those existing wet lease birds are supposed to transition to dry lease soon anyway?

 

[evanb]

Which is what we were speculating re the introduction of a QF operated AY A330 doing the HNL run. Has there been any official word from QF?

Also, aren’t those existing wet lease birds are supposed to transition to dry lease soon anyway?

It's seemingly evolved slightly with the two wet leases transitioning to dry leases as originally planned but two more wet leases for NW25-26 season. No indication if those additional two wet leases will remain beyond NW25-26 but probably too early to make judgements based on the NS26 forward schedule.

There are still some quirks in the NW25-26 schedule with some additional space on the QF operated aircraft. No idea what they'll do with that yet!

 

[dairyfloss]

I wonder now, if there is going to be more of the AY 330s in play, whether QF could consider improving the soft furnishings for the AY J seats to better suit the hard product? It seems to remain a controversial / love-hate product, but many of those who have flown both QF and AY J have said that it could be remedied on QF to a large extent by their using the right accessories with the seats. Is 112 unique J seats in operation enough to now justify this? How long would the leases likely run for?

 

[SYD]

I wonder now, if there is going to be more of the AY 330s in play, whether QF could consider improving the soft furnishings for the AY J seats to better suit the hard product? It seems to remain a controversial / love-hate product, but many of those who have flown both QF and AY J have said that it could be remedied on QF to a large extent by their using the right accessories with the seats. Is 112 unique J seats in operation enough to now justify this? How long would the leases likely run for?

The leases are supposed to run for up to 3 yrs from Oct 2025 until new QF aircraft start arriving.

I guess those unique seats are a small proportion of the entire A380, A330 and B787 seats in service? But it would be nice to have proper fitting toppers etc.

 

[dairyfloss]

The leases are supposed to run for up to 3 yrs from Oct 2025 until new QF aircraft start arriving.

I guess those unique seats are a small proportion of the entire A380, A330 and B787 seats in service? But it would be nice to have proper fitting toppers etc.

3 years is probably long enough to do it - it's only toppers and some cushions! They could just ask AY to produce some more of what they use in QF colours (if they are not already agnostic enough), or maybe having them in a different colour would actually help in terms of cleaning and deployment to the right frames

 

[elanshin]

Based on updated NW25-26 scheduled it now seems as though there will be four Finnair A330s, with two operated by Finnair under wetlease and two operated directly by Qantas. Furthermore, indications from Qantas are that Finnair have settled their crew issues and will operated both aircraft.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1938001148264472938

My main question here is is that an extra 2 aircraft or just 1.

Would seem awfully strange for QF to park an aircraft for a while on the ground.

 

[evanb]

My main question here is is that an extra 2 aircraft or just 1.

Would seem awfully strange for QF to park an aircraft for a while on the ground.

Doubt they'll park them. Likelihood is that schedule hasn't been fully updated yet to reflect additional allocations (the latest SIN changes only just come online). One suggestion was that it's going to SYD-DPS but that would require commensurate changes elsewhere to remain within Indo seat caps.

 

[evanb]

Full schedule for anyone interested:

Qantas-Finnair A330 schedules

SYDNEY-SINGAPORE

www.analyticflying.com

 

[Aeryn]

The proper AY toppers are white so no real need to produce in different colours since QF toppers are white too.

IMO those expecting the official AY toppers to work significantly better will be sorely disappointed as they are poorly designed in that you cant attach them to the seat in any way. It just sits on top although is angled per the seat shape. So unless you lay perfectly still it takes all of a few seconds for it to move out of place if you roll-over.

Could be easily solved by having velcro or some way to tie/clip it in position; and changing out the lap belt used when laying down from a retractable one which progressively gets tighter every time you move with a regular belt that you fasten tight enough to be safe but loose enough that you can roll-over/move without being strangled.

As for the pillows Y provide are one small one (no better than QF default pillow) and an even smaller one which is useless for lumbar support. IMO BA have better pillows as they given you full sized ones.

YMMV, but IME the inability to attach the topper be it the AY one or the QF one is annoying.