Review: Qantas Domestic Business Class (Part 2)

Qantas has two different configurations for their Boeing 737 business class. One has seat back inflight entertainment and the other features entertainment streamed to your device. My first review featured a breakfast flight from Sydney to Brisbane on an aircraft with the seat back entertainment. This review will check out a flight on an aircraft with streaming.

QF782 – Brisbane to Cairns (BNE-CNS)
19 April 2016
Boeing 737-838 VH-VXE “Coffs Harbour”
Seat: Business Class 1A
Departure: 09:45 Arrival: 12:10

After a short connection and lounge visit, boarding commenced for our flight to Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. I had managed to snag row 1 on this sector and I was interested to see what the leg room was like. I am 170cm or 5’7″ tall and as you can see in the photos below, I can touch the bulkhead in front with my feet.

The centre console is quite large and the seat controls are fairly old school. These might look familiar to our friends in the USA as this aircraft was originally ordered by American Airlines. Due to the events of September 2001, American Airlines did not require the aircraft and Qantas agreed to take them straight off the production line in 2002. The Qantas kangaroo features on the wall making the aircraft unmistakably Australian! A pre-departure drink is offered to business class passengers on Qantas and I chose a lemon juice which was quite refreshing. I also took a photo of the bulkhead pattern while boarding was underway. Boarding was completed soon enough and we pushed back. During the pushback I had a wonderful view of one of the Qantas aircraft painted in a retro livery. This Boeing 737 is in the 1970s and 1980s livery and is named after James Strong who was once the airlines CEO. The airline was referred to as The Flying Kangaroo back then and as you can see, the kangaroo has wings!

We were given our safety briefing and without further delay we proceeded to our runway and took off. This particular flight was between meal times and the meal was billed online as ‘Refreshment’ which made me curious about what was going to be served. There were choices and two of those were a chicken toasted sandwich or a salad with a corn based hot option. I chose the latter.

It came with a rhubarb yoghurt and I was offered a small muffin from the basket. The taste of this meal was out of this world! The corn medallions were scrumptious and went really with the salad. The yoghurt was also quite tasty!

My Mum was travelling with me and she chose the toasted sandwich which she reported was very nice also. It certainly looks good!

The Australian Sparking Wine on board this flight was Yarra Burn. This is a very nice champagne and is a different brand to what was offered on my previous flight. In Europe the brand of Champagne or Sparkling Wine is usually the same so I was a little surprised by the difference but quite pleased. It was also a nice day for flying as you can see.

Qantas offer streaming entertainment on aircraft that do not feature individual screens. The service is called Q Streaming and requires you to download the Qantas Entertainment app on your device before you travel. Like a good Boy Scout, I was prepared for this. When I opened the app on my iPad, the service started immediately. The system features movies, TV programmes, music, news and has a section for kids. There was quite a bit of content but there was nothing that really stood out to me as a must watch. What I thought was pretty nice was the fact that there was a flight progress strip across the top of the screen.

For this report I also took a picture of the wall trim and also the carpet.

Finally I took a picture of the overhead panel with its associated lights, air vents, speakers, signs and call buttons.

We descended and landed into Cairns without incident. While we were waiting for the door to open we had a good chat with the very friendly cabin crew. They gave us recommendations of things to do in Cairns which was nice of them. We also ran into them later on after checking in to the Shangri-La Hotel, which I also reviewed here.

Overall Thoughts

Qantas offer an excellent business class product within Australia. The seats are spacious and comfortable and the inflight entertainment options are superb. A lot of flights in Europe offer no entertainment at all so the fact it is offered across the network on Qantas is pretty impressive.

For a between meals flight, I thought the refreshment offered was outstanding. It was far more substantial than I imagined. All of this coupled with the friendly and professional cabin crew made for a satisfying flight. I hope you have enjoyed this report and if you have any questions or comments, leave them below.

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