QF DOM J v AA F comparison (and what QF should incorporate)

[justinbrett]

I've just returned from a US trip where I did a lot of domestic flights in AA domestic First (about 600 SCs worth). A lot of people told me "haha - US first class is worse than Australian economy" but these people have not been following the recent improvements in US air travel following the post 9/11 bankruptcy recovery.

Price
QF J is usually far more expensive than AA F (DFW-JFK is as cheap as A$588 where as MEL-PER (similar distance) is $2318 - even SYD-MEL (much shorter flight) is $903. Across the board you can pick up AA First seats for fairly reasonable prices.

Winner: AA

Check-in / Lounge

Both airlines offer priority check in for J/F with no significant differences.

QF offer J lounge access at almost every port in the domestic network.

AA doesn't offer lounge access on the basis of flying F. What's worse, even if you are OW S/E, there's major airports in its network where it doesn't have a lounge (eg SEA, LAS).

Winner: QF

Boarding

Both airlines offer "priority" boarding for J/F, however with QF you're likely to be in the queue with all SG/WP which on some flights can be longer than the standard queue. AA's ridiculous boarding group strategy will let you board in Group 1 (after Concierge Key members) meaning if you're at the gate at the start you should get on in the first 20 or so group of people.

Winner: AA (marginal)

Pre-departure Beverage

QF has got quite stingy in this area, with choices now limited to sparkling or still water.

AA will make you any drink from the bar (ie G&T, Rum & Coke, wine etc) and serve it to you in a plastic cup. Whilst that's not as fancy as drinking water from a glass, it's much more enjoyable. There is a caveat that not all crews are offering this feature (despite it apparently being AA policy) and in my experience this was only withheld when the flight was late and the crew were busy trying to turn the aircraft around.

Winner: AA

Seats

There is no major difference in the hard product between QF & AA. The AA A321 seats are probably a little bit nicer (and more comfortable) than QF's B738 seats, but both are slightly nicer than AA's B738 seats.

I do like the separate mini drink tables on AA.

Both airlines have aircraft with and without personal entertainment units.

Winner: Tie

Onboard Dining

The beverage options once in the air were comparable, although AA will serve drinks with warm mixed nuts, which is slightly fancier than the bagged pretzels you get with QF. Some AA flights didn't carry sparkling wine so if you're in to that you might be disappointed.

Food is a hard one to compare. I think QF has fairly high quality food but is often lacking in quantity. They usually have at least 1-2 "safe" options so it's not usually difficult to get a good meal.

AA, in true American style, has fairly large meals that are of a similar quality to QF. Where they fail is they usually only have 2 options, and often one of the options is vegetarian. If the meat option is something you're not into, you might be going hungry. (Eg, flying LAX-HNL last week the choices were steamed Sea Bass or vegetarian zucchini meatballs. Neither sounded good).

Winner: QF (marginal)

Service

AA narrow body F is usually 16 seat (4x 2-2) vs QF 12 (3x 2-2). Both usually just have one dedicated FA to the cabin, which means the AA FA is serving 33% more people. I don't feel like this affected my ability to get a drink on demand or wait any longer for a meal, but I did feel like the service wasn't as personal and AA staff don't often refer to you by name.

Winner: QF (marginal).

Baggage

The baggage allowance is the same for both airlines and both priority services were hit & miss.

One feature from AA, granted its not exclusive to F is the bag tracker feature on their app. It gives you a courier like feed of where you bags are throughout your journey (check in, loaded to aircraft, unloaded, loaded again, unloaded again, arrived). This is a great feature when you have a tight connection - the peace of mind to know whether your bags have made the trip. I had some really tight connections (less than 20 minutes actual - not planned) and my bags made it. I've had QF bags miss connections with well over an hour available.

Plus, AA has no weight limit for carry on.

Winner: AA

Flight Changes

AA F is actually really popular, on most of my flights, there were no other AA F seats available on the same routes I was flying on the same day. This meant although I had a top tier ticket, it was effectively non-flex as I had no ability to change to an earlier or later flight (despite AA having the system to do this, usually for free via their app). Had I missed a flight or connection, I would have been downgraded or left stranded for days.

This is all because AA F is too popular.

We can't compare upgrades because the airline only upgrades their own FF program, but the AA seems to be harder - on my DFW-LAS flight there were 53 people on the requested upgrade list (and it was sold out so nobody got upgraded).

Winner: QF (hands down)

Overall

I would say the overall service is pretty much equivalent, noting the pros and cons detailed above. In the end I'd say they end up the same. However, as you can usually get the AA flights for much cheaper than what you can on Qantas, I'd say AA has a far better value product. I would pay for AA first class with cash - I'd rarely pay for QF J with my own money (but happy to use points).

I'd really love to see Qantas introduce the pre-departure bar service, and also the tracked baggage service.

 

[RichardMEL]

I like the post but a few comments.

1. You simply CANNOT compare markets in different countries as you have. It is irrelevant what the "F" (J) fare for DFW-JFK is compared to MEL-PER, SEA-LAX, LAX-MIA or MEL-SYD. It doesn't matter about distance. It matters about a host of things, but to be simple about it you have FAR MORE competition in the US driving fares. eg from DFW-JFK you have AA nonstop, but you can also probably go on B6(I think they serve DFW, but maybe not) and to NY area airports you'd have UA to EWR, DL to LGA and so on. And then there's one stops on the other hub carriers eg: UA via IAH, IAD or ORD, DL via ATL or any other combinations. There's capacity and demand and competition.

In Australia you have TWO carriers offering premium cabins with limited, but more or less fairly close schedules on most of the major trunk routes eg: golden triangle, transcons etc. Limited demand and competition means the prices can stay high. The problem of the old duopoly that the Compasses and the old Virgin Blue tried to push into... and failed (DJ only survived because AN went belly up, otherwise they were going to be toast eventually as the "big 2" would have seen them off eventually, though 9/11 , and the NZ mismanagement of AN took their toll, but I digress).

2. "AA F is popular" - yes and no. The pricing of premium cabins on US domestic has changed over the years. to me big influencing factors were DL first started lowering fares in preference to "free" elite upgrades, to basically extract more yield for the seat (since service was usually marginal, specially on shorter flights) and also the US majors had the concept of the much loved YUPPP type fares a.k.a. what AA used to call "instant upgrade" Y fares that booked into F (and were the sweet sweet spot for years with QFF earning, but now gone for some time alas).

F seats are hard to come by, specially when it comes to same day changes because the airlines elites who have not paid with miles or certss to confirm a seat are comp upgraded by status and with the lower premium fares some pax will pay that F surcharge to not gamble the upgrade lottery,m even if they are AA EXP or CK... and that's EXACTLY what AA (and UA and DL) have created on purpose... they win because they extract higher yield for those seats.

QF does not do comp upgrades with the exception of pseudo random P1 upgrades which is a special subset. In general airlines outside of the US do not, as a habit, practice auto upgrading to free seats of high status elites. You're more likely to see QF staff in free seats imho. That's an observation and probably generalisation rather than statement of fact.. indeed on some recent flights there have been the very rare vacant J seats on some flights. You will almost NEVER see that on a US legacy major domestic flight because they will always upgrade an elite, or a standby into the seats even at the last minute.

Also remember in the US on shorter flights say under 2 hours the best you can hope for on AA or UA is a salty snack like pretzels or chips and a drink. There's 0 "real" meal service in general (there are some small market based exceptmions like Chicago - NY that I am aware of, but in general you get nothing). So SFO-LAX for example at 337 miles or an hours flight you'll get a drink and a snack basket. MEL-ADL at say 400mi or an hour QF usually push out something hot. It may not be great, but it's muh more than you'd get on a US major.

Having written that I was surprised on a ~2 hour flight recently DEN-LAX at dinner time on UA to be offered a hot meal (cheeseburger lol very midwest) but I've flown the reverse on AA and received snack mix and drinks, so it varies.

Again try to not compare markets in different countries on price because it's just not relevant imho.. it can't be.

If you had a 3rd and 4th carrier able to fly you SYD/MEL-PER, even if it was via ADL in some cases (ignoring the lack of demand from pax and all the rest of the reasons why this would never work) you'd for sure find much lower J (and y) fares.

Rembeer OzJet by Stoddard? 737-200 with a premium cabin? didn't go long did it? Just couldn't be supported.

my 3 cents.

 

[RichardMEL]

also you've equated 737 cabins (or some Mad Dogs I think have 16F) but QF and AA both fly larger widebodies on trunk and hub to hub routes (eg: 767's, 787 and 777's for AA and 330's and the very odd 747 for QF.. and of course the 789 MEL-PER) ... getting into one of those cabins will enhance your experience by a massive factor IMHO

 

[justinbrett]

Having written that I was surprised on a ~2 hour flight recently DEN-LAX at dinner time on UA to be offered a hot meal (cheeseburger lol very midwest) but I've flown the reverse on AA and received snack mix and drinks, so it varies.

Again try to not compare markets in different countries on price because it's just not relevant imho.. it can't be.

The point of the post was to compare how each airline approaches their premium cabin, and things I think Qantas could look at improving. In my experience, Qantas is generally "enhancing" its service, and by that I mean the opposite - the product is worse now than it was 5-10 years ago, and the value has decreased. On the flip side, many Australians view US Airlines "First" cabin as far inferior and in my experience that has no grounds - AA in particular has come leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a decade ago, particularly since the merger with US and the transition to new aircraft. Every time I fly with AA the product seems to be better than the last time I flew with them (for example, in MCE you now get free alcohol, and MCE is free for OWS/E).

As you say, there isn't credible competition in Australia - so the airlines don't have incentive to cut prices and improve the product.

As for price, yeah it's completely different and it's not like you're going to fly DFW-JFK instead of MEL-PER because it's cheaper - but the point remains that AA first is affordable for the general public for personal travel, I don't know many people in Australia who would use their own money to fly J in Australia. That's a notable difference that deserves a mention.

 

[RichardMEL]

As for price, yeah it's completely different and it's not like you're going to fly DFW-JFK instead of MEL-PER because it's cheaper - but the point remains that AA first is affordable for the general public for personal travel, I don't know many people in Australia who would use their own money to fly J in Australia. That's a notable difference that deserves a mention.

because those that fly domestic J are usually on the corporate dime, or more likely upgrades/awards.

This is also why the service standards have slipped. People aren't really paying for it and there's little competition (though VA's transcon is superior and I am not sure why QF have done much to try and up their soft product).

And see they can push the J price to >$2k for MEL/SYD-PER because they sell so few if they can extract that kind of yield from a paying pax (and remember corporate deals often include a hefty discount on published fares) then they're laughing, but they are aware next to nobody actually pays those prices, specially for personal travel and they don't really expect it.

And again, legacy US airlines operate in a totally different marketplace and they make "premium" cabin fares lower due to competition pure and simple. NYC-LAX/SFO premium pricing was through the roof until B6 jumped in with the fantastic mint product that could be had for like $599 one way boom... everyone else dropped.

QF do offer occasional domestic J sales as well.. still not great on some routes, but on others some reasonable pricing.

again though, the model is different in our environment. I'm not saying it's right or that it shouldn't change, but I doubt it will anytime soon.

the US and Australia are so vastly different it's ridiculous.

IMO

 

[Franky]

because those that fly domestic J are usually on the corporate dime, or more likely upgrades/awards.

This is also why the service standards have slipped. People aren't really paying for it and there's little competition (though VA's transcon is superior and I am not sure why QF have done much to try and up their soft product).

And see they can push the J price to >$2k for MEL/SYD-PER because they sell so few if they can extract that kind of yield from a paying pax (and remember corporate deals often include a hefty discount on published fares) then they're laughing, but they are aware next to nobody actually pays those prices, specially for personal travel and they don't really expect it.

And again, legacy US airlines operate in a totally different marketplace and they make "premium" cabin fares lower due to competition pure and simple. NYC-LAX/SFO premium pricing was through the roof until B6 jumped in with the fantastic mint product that could be had for like $599 one way boom... everyone else dropped.

QF do offer occasional domestic J sales as well.. still not great on some routes, but on others some reasonable pricing.

again though, the model is different in our environment. I'm not saying it's right or that it shouldn't change, but I doubt it will anytime soon.

the US and Australia are so vastly different it's ridiculous.

IMO

Two countries of similar size, but with populations of 300m+ in the US, and 25m in Australia is another reason why.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

From the perspective of a passenger without status I feel AA wins in all categories except lounge access.

I prefer AA’s boarding (really important for stowing hand luggage) and their drinks range. I would prefer they offer no sparkling wine than a $15 bottle.

Service wise i also prefer AA... without status I end up in row three of QF’s 737s which means i don’t get served until the start of descent. And miss out on my meal of choice.

Quality wise... one of the QF mains might be superior, but the alternative is not. And i can never get it. At least on AA I get something reasonable, even if only comfort food!

And I like AA FAs better. Bar one flight (in maybe a 100?) i’ve only had good crew.