Qantas Business Class meals & menus

[vhojm]

I am interested how timings are going to be on Melbourne Sydney flights with 20 business class seats on the A321.
People in row 5 are not going to have long to eat at all.

 

[downgraded]

but the table starting times are staggered

As they are on QF. They don't plate all the meals at once, there's a sliding start time which may impact take-off to completion, but shouldn't impact first course to last course for an individual. When the main takes so long to assist that you have to ask if they've forgotten you (not unheard of), there's something wrong with the service approach.

 

[bussyboy]

I am interested how timings are going to be on Melbourne Sydney flights with 20 business class seats on the A321.
People in row 5 are not going to have long to eat at all.

View attachment 467799

I think they have a solution in mind

 

[Aeryn]

I think they have a solution in mind

An extra crew member in J and less chatter with row 1 / staff travellers would get the job done.

 

[Pushka]

Actually very few airlines do “Dine on demand”. Aussie travellers have been spoiled by some of the ME airlines - but it’s actually not that common.

Yes, QF needs to bring back preorder.

No, they vary quite a lot.

Our QF103 didn’t have a starter - straight to mains (including a BIG bowl of Pea Soup!).

It was an 20:30 dep, so yep eating well in the QF F lounge was an advantage.

Anything else we should know about the flight? Love soup (except seafood) but this would make me . Just got the points upgrade Adelaide to Sydney too. Will enjoy the new Business lounge in Adelaide, first time for me, millionth time for MrP.

 

[Pushka]

2.5 hours for a meal service is just ridiculous. 3 courses, they can have 45 minutes max (from delivery of course 1 to delivery of course 3). It only takes a few minutes to eat each course, 20 mins from clearing one plate to delivering the next is more than enough from the consumers perspective, it's not like QF serve large portions that require time to digest!. Many restaurants want you out in 2 hours for 3 courses from arrival to departure including perusing menu to finishing coffee/drinks, even that's pretty laborious. As to the other concern, what's the chances that you'll get your preferred starters AND preferred main either? QFs not exactly got a track record for catering adequately.

This is why I never eat a meal onboard on an evening departure.

 

[SYD]

Anything else we should know about the flight? Love soup (except seafood) but this would make me . Just got the points upgrade Adelaide to Sydney too. Will enjoy the new Business lounge in Adelaide, first time for me, millionth time for MrP.

See post #8,071

 

[MEL_Traveller]

An extra crew member in J and less chatter with row 1 / staff travellers would get the job done.

I’m not sure that makes much difference, except on domestic where meals are pre-plated?

On international, there’s only one or two crew plating the meals in the galley, they can only work so fast.

Someone in another thread mentioned the crew didn’t ’chit chat’ with them during the service. So it seems hard for the crew either way.

As they are on QF. They don't plate all the meals at once, there's a sliding start time which may impact take-off to completion, but shouldn't impact first course to last course for an individual. When the main takes so long to assist that you have to ask if they've forgotten you (not unheard of), there's something wrong with the service approach.

No, but they have 28, 42 or 70 tickets in front of them which they have to work one after the other. Even if that’s one minute per dish to plate, I expect at least 30 mins. between courses? Maybe they can plate faster, but then others will complain about the presentation.

 

[muppet]

I’m not sure that makes much difference, except on domestic where meals are pre-plated?

On international, there’s only one or two crew plating the meals in the galley, they can only work so fast.

Someone in another thread mentioned the crew didn’t ’chit chat’ with them during the service. So it seems hard for the crew either way.



No, but they have 28, 42 or 70 tickets in front of them which they have to work one after the other. Even if that’s one minute per dish to plate, I expect at least 30 mins. between courses? Maybe they can plate faster, but then others will complain about the presentation.

I’ll add that it seems that whoever (but maybe nobody) has designed the service flow for QF international really makes it hard on the crew. On the smaller A330 that flies from Asia, you have to walk through the crew trying to prep meals to get to the only lav. And when you look at the set up, it really is a crazy set up. Plates everywhere, foil trays of hot dishes, so much relocation of each item required and double handling. Even if you assigned more staff to the job, where would they work - it’s chockas in that front galley already.

That said I do agree, food boring, need more choice and takes too long.

 

[wenglock.mok]

I’ll add that it seems that whoever (but maybe nobody) has designed the service flow for QF international really makes it hard on the crew. On the smaller A330 that flies from Asia, you have to walk through the crew trying to prep meals to get to the only lav. And when you look at the set up, it really is a crazy set up. Plates everywhere, foil trays of hot dishes, so much relocation of each item required and double handling. Even if you assigned more staff to the job, where would they work - it’s chockas in that front galley already.

That said I do agree, food boring, need more choice and takes too long.

I wonder if part of the reason is that they regularly operate the so-called domestic A330-200 on the South-East Asian routes and those galleys are only set up to handle one meal on domestic flights, rather than the two that are required on international sectors (albeit the second meal on these shorter international sectors is usually a small one-course affair).

Having said that though, I recently flew on QF46, the overnight DPS-MEL service on a 737-800 and the CSM was brilliant. Everyone in Business got fed, watered and lights were turned out less than 50 minutes after departure for the very short 4h35 overnight sector. We even got a coffee and a very delicious muffin before landing. The galley space on those planes are tiny.

 

[Aeryn]

I’m not sure that makes much difference, except on domestic where meals are pre-plated?

Well my reply was in reference to another re the move from 12 to 20 J seats on SYD-MEL, so 2 staff instead of 1 will make a big difference on Domestic.

On international ive always found meal services timing fine.

 

[anat0l]

No, but they have 28, 42 or 70 tickets in front of them which they have to work one after the other. Even if that’s one minute per dish to plate, I expect at least 30 mins. between courses? Maybe they can plate faster, but then others will complain about the presentation.

For whatever it's worth, unless the meal is prepared a la minute (i.e. cooked to order from scratch), 1 dish per minute is a very, very slow delivery time. I think a rough guide for a restaurant is that no customer should be waiting more than 10 minutes for the next course after they finish (again, provided the dish isn't cooked to order).

But let's also be fair on the crew. They aren't trained as seasoned (pun intended) chefs (if you've ever seen a brigade of them plating up 10 or so meals at a time), I don't know how many ovens they have to work with in the sky (for up to four main courses to heat), and yes the space is quite confined. They also can't necessarily heat all the main food at once (and say keep it under a heat lamp), because not all passengers finish courses at the same time (some crew might do this to try and save time, which explains a few hockey puck steaks).

I don't know if it's galley design and/or number of crew assigned to the duty that further complicates all of this, viz. QF could adjust to account for these (well, one is at the cabin/galley design level, which is a little bit more difficult once the plane is delivered, and the other is human resources, which QF is loathe to add more crew for, unless you say steal one member from W or Y to help, but my impression is that the latter two cabins are also staffed at the minimum).

 

[anat0l]

Well my reply was in reference to another re the move from 12 to 20 J seats on SYD-MEL, so 2 staff instead of 1 will make a big difference on Domestic

The interesting part here will be how to serve that many more people on a single aisle configuration. At least with twin aisle you can roll one cart per aisle.

Maybe if they have two people, both have separate carts, and one can plate the main on the tray, while the one behind offers drinks and bread.

I know people are going to say so many other carriers do it well, e.g. BA J cabins, no matter how short the flight, easily have 20 or even more pax to serve. I do know BA use at least 2 crew members for the J cabin. OS are similar in terms of pax numbers and also use 2 crew at minimum; mind, they only have one choice of main course (barring special meals), so that helps. It will be a fairly new procedure for the crew sent to work on these new aircraft.

Anyone know how many crew will be on the new A321s?

 

[Daver6]

I am interested how timings are going to be on Melbourne Sydney flights with 20 business class seats on the A321.
People in row 5 are not going to have long to eat at all.

They could do something revolutionary and take orders prior to take-off.

 

[serfty]

I should have asked but didn’t. Looking at the menu now, it does mention dressing.

Overall felt like a downgrade from the last time I flew QF J long haul.

Breakfast was solid though. I feel like QF’s breakfasts tend to be better than their dinners.

(I should have moved the toast before taking a photo!)

View attachment 467734

These flights out of LAX are designated "Supper Service" so Qantas can reduce expenditure by not catering a "starter."

Not all is lost though - if in Qantas business you can always allow enough time to get a pre flight Champers and some reasonable tucker at T4 in the LAX Flagship lounge, followed by a restorative airside walk to your gate.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

For whatever it's worth, unless the meal is prepared a la minute (i.e. cooked to order from scratch), 1 dish per minute is a very, very slow delivery time. I think a rough guide for a restaurant is that no customer should be waiting more than 10 minutes for the next course after they finish (again, provided the dish isn't cooked to order).

But let's also be fair on the crew. They aren't trained as seasoned (pun intended) chefs (if you've ever seen a brigade of them plating up 10 or so meals at a time), I don't know how many ovens they have to work with in the sky (for up to four main courses to heat), and yes the space is quite confined. They also can't necessarily heat all the main food at once (and say keep it under a heat lamp), because not all passengers finish courses at the same time (some crew might do this to try and save time, which explains a few hockey puck steaks).

I don't know if it's galley design and/or number of crew assigned to the duty that further complicates all of this, viz. QF could adjust to account for these (well, one is at the cabin/galley design level, which is a little bit more difficult once the plane is delivered, and the other is human resources, which QF is loathe to add more crew for, unless you say steal one member from W or Y to help, but my impression is that the latter two cabins are also staffed at the minimum).

I think the max they have room for in the galley is two to be plating, and then the other two or three crew that do the delivering and drinks and stuff? SQ is easy… cold pre-plated entrees can be taken straight out of the trolley and served, no prep required. The crew working the galley can start straight away on plating the mains.

Well my reply was in reference to another re the move from 12 to 20 J seats on SYD-MEL, so 2 staff instead of 1 will make a big difference on Domestic.

On international ive always found meal services timing fine.

Oh yes! My bad sorry!

 

[Flyfrequently]

They could do something revolutionary and take orders prior to take-off.

This was done on QF44 last Tuesday @Daver6

 

[Flyfrequently]

Having said that though, I recently flew on QF46, the overnight DPS-MEL service on a 737-800 and the CSM was brilliant. Everyone in Business got fed, watered and lights were turned out less than 50 minutes after departure for the very short 4h35 overnight sector. We even got a coffee and a very delicious muffin before landing.

We flew QF45 2/52 ago with Anthony as CSM - perhaps you had him and/or Greg, a dynamic duo.
Compliments email sent to QF

The galley space on those planes are tiny.

Agree @wenglock.mok !!

 

[Daver6]

They could also save a heap of time if they had menus instead of having to repeat the options to each pax.

At the very least, make the menu available in the QF app. That should be easy enough and can also be updated on the fly. IF they really want to get efficient, let you order (even pre-order) using the app. For those who don't want to, you can still order the old fashioned way. Even with half the cabin doing this, you'd drastically speed up service.