"Qantas-Emirates: a boon for business travellers?"

[SteveJohnson]

Last month's historic hook-up between Qantas and Emirates generated plenty of fireworks, but what does it mean for the business traveller?
Over the past few weeks we've seen some more details start to filter through.
High Flyer has also been busy pinging Qantas and Emirates for additional information in order to pull together this summary for business travellers and frequent flyers.

Qantas-Emirates: a boon for business travellers?

 

[PineappleSkip]

(Also expect to see those A330s upgraded to the A380-grade SkyBed II business class seats, which are fully lie-flat models rather than 'sloping sleeper' recliners).

Hum. Wonder what the likelihood of that is?

Cheers skip

 

[Awesom Andy]

Hum. Wonder what the likelihood of that is?

The way I see it, virtually impossible. The older A330s can't take the new seats, and the newer ones are all marked for domestic use with the Y+ like regional products, assuming they don't get painted orange in the first place.

 

[Paddy55]

Hum. Wonder what the likelihood of that is?

Cheers skip

V skeptical ... V v skeptical

 

[anat0l]

The way I see it, virtually impossible. The older A330s can't take the new seats, and the newer ones are all marked for domestic use with the Y+ like regional products, assuming they don't get painted orange in the first place.

Well, I thought they could, it's just that the retrofit would be quite expensive: less seats overall in the cabin (unless you remove Y seats or, God forbid, toilets), and the floor needs to be reinforced considerably.


Considering the article is written by David Flynn, who is also on the AusBT team, the article is not much of a surprise to anyone used to the same kind of analysis that would surely be on AusBT as well. Most of it is stuff that a lot of people already know, and some of it is being a fair bit (perhaps unfairly) optimistic.

 

[SteveJohnson]

I think Qantas would find it hard to justify its already high business class fares offering substandard business class seats to Singapore, they'd just drive people into the welcoming arms of SQ. Yes upgrading the A330s with the Skybed II product would be expensive but maybe its insurance against losing customers entirely.

 

[mannej]

The way I see it, virtually impossible. The older A330s can't take the new seats, and the newer ones are all marked for domestic use with the Y+ like regional products, assuming they don't get painted orange in the first place.

Why can't the 333's take new seats? The issue you may be referring to affects the older 332's that are at JQ at present.