Qantas A330 YBBN to LAX

[Inlander]

Im wondering if anyone knows what mods Qantas is making to its A330 to allow it to fly the Transpacific out of Brisbane. Is it simple weight reduction?(Less payload etc)

 

[milehighclub]

It’s purely paperwork. There is no physical changes to the aircraft but it is weight restricted on the flight back to BNE.

 

[Inlander]

It’s purely paperwork. There is no physical changes to the aircraft but it is weight restricted on the flight back to BNE.

Thanking you

 

[henrus]

AFF had an article about this: How Qantas Plans to Fly A330s to Los Angeles & San Francisco

Airbus has to sign off on the paperwork and one business class plus 20 economy seats will be blocked for crew rest.

 

[Quickstatus]

Im wondering if anyone knows what mods Qantas is making to its A330

But the upside is that the Y cabin will be a more spacious 2-4-2 rather than 3-3-3
A330 Y seats are slightly wider with slightly less legroom If I recall correctly.

Some people might find wider a better compromise than more leg room.

 

[NoName]

I booked an award on QF15 in J entirely due to the night departure being perfect for my itinerary so will see how it goes. Flight isn’t until the start of August so a bit of time yet to see what happens here. What are peoples thoughts on whether this operates by then or am I looking at being re-routed through SYD or MEL?

 

[Quickstatus]

What are peoples thoughts on whether this operates by then or am I looking at being re-routed through SYD or MEL?

Crystal ball stuff. The airline can change or cancel any aspect of that booking - timing, dates, aircraft, routing. It could even downgrade your seat to economy.

 

[DC3]

Im wondering if anyone knows what mods Qantas is making to its A330 to allow it to fly the Transpacific out of Brisbane. Is it simple weight reduction?(Less payload etc)

I’m not aware of any AFF ‘insiders’ currently at QF. Anyway, who knows? As long as it gets me back from LAX in a few months time.

 

[jlzrbm]

It's worth noting that the aircraft that QF are now sending on BNE-LAX are A332's, which have slightly longer legs than the A333's.

Rumour has it that back when QF was reconfiguring the the 330's with the new business class (circa 2014?), management intended the 333's to be international-only aircraft, while the 332's would only do east-west (and the occasional short Asia / NZ crossing) . Two of the 332's (EBG and EBL if memory serves) were kept in a long-haul config, however, mostly for AKL-LAX-JFK and India services via DRW - these birds were the ones with the sloping skybed's 1. The 333 was configured with a more long-haul setting (i.e cloth seats v. leather in business and, most importantly, a significantly more comfortable / spacious economy product).

This is didn't work out for a couple of reasons: 1. The 332 has longer legs than the 333 (for instance, PEK and BKK possible on a full load for the 332 however may have some load restrictions for the 333) and 2. The resources boom went bust, meaning that trans-con demand shrunk right back down.3. The 'international' a332's were getting very, very old. Qantas got stuck in a bad spot, however, with recently-ish configured aircraft that weren't right for the market (the A332s).

What Qantas then needed to do was to create a minimally-edited aircraft that would work on long haul - with more galley space, pilot crew rest etc. What they settled on was ripping a couple of rows out of the trans-con A332's that had hard-wired IFE (i.e not the iPad streaming aircraft), chucking in a bit more galley space and a pilot crew rest, and calling it a day. Post-pandemic, these aircraft are operating a fair chunk of the Qantas international network - including the BNE/LAX rotations.

The problem with this is that you now have an aircraft with an economy seating product designed for max 5 hour sectors (effectively short haul) crossing the pacific. The seats on the A332 are significantly different to the A333 - closer to what you see on the 737.

Long story short - avoid Y on this flight at all costs.

 

[moa999]

Qantas last altered the 330s over 2017-2019.

There are two versions of the 332.
1. 8 aircraft (the older ones) The all doemstic version - leather suites in J, the iPad holders in Y and Inflight Wifi
2. 10 aircraft - mixed usage. Cloth suites on J, the IFE screens in Y (but smaller than the models in the 333).

Pre-Covid these 10 mixed aircraft were predominantly used internationally, mostly into Asia, including on SYD-PEK before it was cancelled.

Pretty sure the pitch across all the 330s in Y is 31", though the newer slimmer seats on the 333 may make a bit more usable at the knees.

The 332s were in the news on the BNE-LAX recently with cabin crew sleeping with blankets over them, as for a flight of that length a flat bed is required for rest (not so for Asian flights) and Qantas had yet to install curtains (and apparently on that flight there was an issue with the cabin dimming system.