It had been a long journey which commenced with a two hour train ride to New York City but this would be our third and final flight for the trip to get home.  I find flying to a destination exciting and enjoyable but coming home, I’m keen to get it over with, especially if the rest of the family are back home.  I also don’t enjoy overnight flights as much and for some reason the flights back seem to always be overnighters.

Airline and Flight #

Qantas QF814

Aircraft 

Boeing B737-800

Airport and Terminal

Tullamarine Airport Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | Terminal 1

Scheduled Departure Date and Time

Sunday 24th September | 8:30 am

Flying Time

1 hour 5 minutes

Luggage Allowance

Carry-on: 1 x 185cm (45in) bag or 1 x 185cm (73in) non rigid garment bag up to 7kg

Checked baggage: 2 pieces up to 23kg (50lbs) each

If you are a Qantas club member or have silver or gold frequent flyer membership you are allowed an extra piece of checked baggage.  Business and First Class passengers are also allowed 3 to 4 pieces.

Fun Facts

• Qantas is the third oldest airline in the world and Australia’s largest airline
• Qantas is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services
• Qantas is the founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance
• Qantas’ main hub is in Sydney, Australia

Website

The Qantas website is easy to use and provides plenty of details when booking flights including type of aircraft, flight duration, any meals and snacks, stopovers and even how many frequent flyer points and status credits you will accrue on your chosen flight.  If you pay by BPAY there are no extra costs incurred.  Unfortunately for international flights, you can’t book seats without incurring a fee of $35 if you’re travelling on a sale fare unless you wait up to 48 hours before departure.  Extra legroom seats cost an extra $20 per person on top of the $35.

Check-in and Security

As we had already checked in at JFK airport in New York and been given our three sets of boarding passes, there was no need to check in again.  As the international and domestic terminals are connected, it made walking from terminal 2 to terminal 1 nice and easy.  Passing through security was straightforward.

Seating

• We were seated in row 15 of 29.  The Qantas B737-800 is a narrow bodied jet with a 3-3 configuration throughout.  The aircraft has 168 seats divided into 12 Business class seats and 156 Economy seats.
• The seats were cloth whilst the head rests were leather or vinyl.  There were no foot rests but as this was a short flight, it didn’t pose a problem.
• Leg room was quite restrictive on this flight
• Seat pitch 30 inches (76.2 cm), seat width 17.2 inches ( 43.7 cm), seat recline 5 inches (12.7 cm).

Cabin Comfort

For a short flight like this one, the creature comforts you get on larger and newer planes don’t matter as much.  This plane didn’t have individual entertainment screens to make the time pass quicker or foot rests to provide some relief to aching feet.  The head rests weren’t those fancy adjustable ones and anyone average height or above would find leg room very limiting.  The toilets were also tiny making trying to do anything in there a real challenge.

In-flight Entertainment

Electronic Devices

• Electronic devices can be used whilst boarding using the aerobridge but not if you’re using the tarmac to board.
• Once doors on the plane have closed you need to then switch your device to flight mode

Power

• AC power ports are available at every seat
• Power is provided at a maximum of 75 watts which if exceeded needs to be reset on the ground

Reading Material

• Qantas Spirit of Australia is the inflight magazine found in the pocket of your seat

WiFi

On this flight WiFi was not available however Qantas is in the process of rolling out inflight WiFi on 80 of its domestic fleet of B737’s and A330’s.  Whether this will be one of them, I’m not certain but if so, once on board you will be able to use your own device to connect and log in to Qantas Free Inflight WiFi.

Entertainment System

Q Radio has up to 12 audio channels to listen to and this plane doesn’t have individual screens for watching movies or TV or playing games. Instead there are overhead screens located throughout the cabin which show movies if the flight is longer than three hours, which our one wasn’t.

Catering

Menus

As this was a short domestic flight, there were no menus.

Food/Drinks

Despite the short one hour flight, we were handed orange and chia seed muffins with tea, coffee, juice or water.  The muffins were very enjoyable and made the flight seem even shorter.

Toilets

There was very little room to move so using the toilets on this plane was not the most pleasant experience.

Service

Service was friendly and it was nice to be served something to eat and drink on such a short flight.

Pros

• food and drinks were served even though the flight was short
• staff friendly
• larger plane than some domestic planes like the Dash 8’s so it didn’t take long to reach our destination

Cons

• no individual screens
• very little leg room
• no WiFi
• toilets were cramped

Conclusion

Apart from not having very much leg room and no individual screen, it was an enjoyable flight on board Qantas’ 737-800.  Staff were friendly and the muffin and tea were appreciated, despite the flight only being an hour.  For longer flights however, I would not recommend this plane.