Sydney to Buenos Aires

[philflyer]

I'm really excited to be flying this on Qantas for the first time this Saturday 8th Aug.

Now I noticed that they are not selling first class on this flight but they are selling premium economy. So it must be a 4 class plane. If I have read SeatCounter correctly there is no first class, and lots of seats left in business and prem econ. But not many left in economy. I am a Qantas silver member and booked in to economy.

If they are upgrading people to move forward does anyone know if they are doing this before the day or on the actual day. I heard a while back that they were not selling first on this route (and some others) so I wonder how they are handling the seat movements and when.

 

[serfty]

Yep, Qantas have redefined their seating for many flights. This currently stops after October but until then there are some good seats available.

For example, MEL/HKG/LHR and SYD/EZE are being sold as three class. When Qantas use their 4 class aircraft the following class allocations are being used:

See here: http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/flying/inTheAir/ourAircraft/744-14P50J32PY255Y.pdf

• First Class is not sold, 14 seats in Zone A are allocated to Business class passengers.
• Business Class is Zone A and Zone F (upperdeck) with the 28 SkyBeds in Zone B allocated to Y+
• Premium Economy is Zone B with the 28 SkyBeds.
• Economy is Zones C, D & E including the 32 Y+ seats in zone C being allocated for economy PAX.

So instead of having a 14F 50J 32W & 255Y configuration we have a 36J 28W & 287.

 

[philflyer]

I see. So that means that up to 32 people from economy could be upgraded to Prem Econ.

Since this is now a regular occurance (until October) does anyone know if they do the upgrades prior to the day?

My guess is that it would make sense to do it close to the departure time in case of late bookings.

 

[serfty]

No - it would be W seating with WHY service. (Outside of operational upgrades)

It's not an upgrade per se - it's simply a better seat for a lucky few. It's done by seat pre-allocation; if you have status you may be able to pre-allocate in the W seating in zone C. (Indicated on the seat map as 2x4x2 seating, rather than 3x4x3)

 

[philflyer]

Nice one Serfty! I just called Qantas and wass pre-allocated 37A and B. How cool is that !

So now we are seating in Prem Econ seats for the trip to Buenos Aires. I can't believe how easy that was. Even the girl at Qantas was surprised.

 

[philflyer]

Well we had a great trip over to Buenos Aires on QF17 on Saturday. I was amazed at how few people were boarding the 747 at Sydney. The flight attendant later told me that they were 85% full. After take off many people were being spread out around the plane. We saw several parties being brought up to premium economy.

When our video system broke down in the first 2 hours of the trip we were moved up to 29A and B. Sky beds in business class. And a couple of sealed business class packs were left on the seats. How nice!

So for the record. I was on an award redemption for 2 economy seats (the start of a One World round the world trip), we were pre-allocated Prem Economy seats and were moved to Business when the video system broke.

Of course none of this would have happened if the flights were fuller. The flight attendant told me that he'd heard that the current arrangement of assigning Prem Economy to Economy passengers would last until November.

Our next flight is the 11 hour trip on an AA 767 to New York... I'm not looking forward to it at all.

Pic is me in the Sky Bed seat.

http://www.melbourneloft.com/images/General/worldtripphil.jpg

 

[Fifa]

Nice one

Just goes to show - it's always worth asking!

 

[philflyer]

Back around July/August Qantas had redefined the seating arrangements for certain routes (Business pushed to First - Prem Econ pushed to Business - Econ pushed to Prem Econ). Sydney to Buenos Aires was one of those routes.

Does anyone know if any of these arrangements still exist now?

 

[serfty]

...
Does anyone know if any of these arrangements still exist now?

Earlier this year this was the general case.

However, it appears that Qantas have gone back to normal.

You may be able to check it out yourself with Exprtflyer, KVS or do a dummy booking using Expedia (US) site: The Australian Frequent Flyer Online Community - View Single Post - BA 777 Question

 

[philflyer]

I had no idea that Expedia.com gave that level of information on seat availability! Thanks for the tip Serfty!

Looks like the unusual temporary seating pattern has ran out. It was good while it lasted

Qantas brought out cheap fares for SYD - EZE today for April 2010 so I'm grabbing one now.