After our flight from JFK to LAX, we waited to board our next flight that would take us to Sydney, Australia.  The plane was late in so boarding and takeoff were delayed by just over half an hour.

Airline and Flight #

Qantas QF12

Aircraft

Airbus Industrie A380-800 Jet

Airport and Terminal

LAX Los Angeles| Terminal B

Scheduled Departure Date and Time

Sunday 21st October 2018| 10:30pm

Flying Time

15 hours  0 minutes

Luggage Allowance

Carry-on: 1 personal item/garment bag and 2 bags up to 7kg.  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 and up to 158 linear centimetres (62 inches)

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, 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 or have Qantas frequent flyer status of silver or above.  Extra legroom seats cost an extra $20 per person on top of the $35.

Check-in 

Check-in for Qantas international flights opens from 24 hours up until 90 minutes prior to departure.  This can be done on-line or at the airport using the self-service kiosk or at the check-in counter.  You can check-in three ways:

1. Mobile check-in – by downloading the Qantas app you can check-in and access your digital boarding pass without the need to print it out.  Other benefits of this method include being alerted to when check-in first opens, access to real time flight data in case of delays and the ability to view any entertainment options prior to your flight.  You can also choose your seats.
2. Desktop check-in – by logging on to the Qantas website http://Qantas.com and entering your booking reference and last name to bring up your booking.  Select the Checkin/Print Boarding Pass button and remember to take your boarding pass with you to the airport.
3. At the airport – via the self-service kiosks or at the desk in the Departures area prior to passing through security.  Here you can also select your seat, enter your frequent flyer number, upgrade your flight using Qantas points and print out your boarding pass and bag tags so you can drop off any bags at the bag drop.  Otherwise you can check in at the counter.

As QF12 flies from New York to LA and LA to Sydney, we had already checked in for both flights back at JFK Airport in New York.

Seating

Layout – The Qantas A380-800 is a wide bodied jet with 484 seats.  These are made up of 14 First Class seats, 64 Business class seats, 35 Premium Economy class seats and 371 Economy class seats.  Economy is set out in a 3-4-3 configuration. We were seated in row 55 of 88, over the front part of the wing.   The entire cabin interior including the seating was designed by Australian Marc Newson.

Features – The seats are made from maroon cloth with with a light grey antimacassar draped over the  headrests.  Each seat has netted foot rests and winged head rests that you can adjust to support your neck better whilst sleeping.  Armrests don’t fully retract on this aircraft. The black tray tables aren’t folding but are adjustable and a good size.

On each seat – On our seats was a good quality maroon blanket sealed in plastic, a set of headphones also sealed in plastic and one of Qantas’ new plush pillows.  Once we were in the air and the seat-belt lights had been switched off, amenity kits were handed out.  These contained a toothbrush and mini toothpaste, an eye mask and a pair of ear plugs.  You don’t often see amenity kits in Economy anymore so this was a pleasant surprise.

Specs – Seat pitch 31 inches (78.7 cm), seat width 17.5 inches (44.5 cm), seat recline 6 inches (15.2 cm)

• • • 

      Economy seats on the Qantas A380

• • • 

      Ready for our long flight home on Qantas’ A380-800

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    Sturdy tray tables on the Qantas A380-800

Cabin Comfort

• The A380-800 is very quiet inside the cabin whilst the ambient LED lighting can reduce the effects of jet lag by simulating sunrise and sunset with it’s range of colours.
• The slightly wider seats provide a more comfortable flight as do the foot nets.
• The high ceilings make the aircraft appear larger and feel more spacious

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

Communication

On the Qantas A380, you can’t use your own mobile or smart phone to make calls or send texts.  However you are able to send and receive texts, make inflight calls and perform seat to seat calls with Qantas’ inflight telecommunication service.  Using the airline’s phone handset, you can send messages of up to 160 characters to any SMS compatable mobile phone or email address.  The cost to send and receive each messages is $1.90 USD per message.  On the other side of the handset is a satellite phone for making phone calls at a charge of $5 USD per minute.  You can make and receive calls to passengers on the same flight for free.

Power

Shared PC power is available in Economy class at 110V AC (60Hz) and is located under the seat in front.  Most household power plugs are accepted and power is provided at a maximum of 75 watts which if exceeded on your own device, needs to be reset on the ground.  There is a charger and headphone socket at the end of the armrest.

In the Seat Pocket

As well as the air sickness bag and safety card, Qantas has its own magazine “Spirit of Australia” filled with information about their aircraft and routes.  There are also articles on travel destinations, interviews and of course plenty of advertising.  There is no duty free shopping to the US.

WiFi

WiFi is not available on this flight.  Qantas has decided not to offer inflight internet as a result of a trial it conducted back in 2012 where less than five percent of passengers took up the service.  The demand for internet on international flights is a lot lower than domestic flights given the majority of international flights are overnight and most passengers prefer to sleep or use the in-flight entertainment system.

Entertainment System

• Each seat has a Panasonic eX2 inflight entertainment system with a large personal touch screen and a remote in the inside arm rest.  There are over 100 on demand movies to watch and over 500 TV shows.  There is up 1500 audio CD’s as well as a selection of audio books, language tutorials, destination information, business education and radio channels.
• The screen also has a Flight Path allowing you to see details including where you are, the time and distance to your destination, air temperature and speed you are travelling at.  A camera situated outside the aircraft enables live views from outside the plane.

Safety Demonstration

The safety demo is done by cabin crew whilst the safety video plays on your screen in front of you.  The video is quite long at seven minutes but I think they have done a really good job with it.  Some can be quite tacky and over the top but this isn’t one of them.  The video jumps to some of the various locations which Qantas flies to and someone there will relate something in that location to one of the safety do’s or don’ts on the aircraft .  For example a man in Kruger National park puts out his campfire before talking about smoking in the aircraft and a woman on safari drops her phone out of the jeep beside an elephant and the tour guide tells not to  retrieve it as he will.  She then talks about not retrieving mobile phones if they fall between the seats in the aircraft and to call a crew member to retrieve it as there’s less chance of it getting damaged.  The video is quite clever and there’s even some humour too.  Throughout the video they sing parts of the song “I still call Australia Home” which would bring out the patriotism in any Aussie.

Catering

Menus

Qantas recently changed their menus and although they’re an improvement on the old ones, they still lack the quality and presentation of those on other airlines.  The paper is thin and opens up to a food menu on the right hand side with beverages on the back. There is a choice of three mains, a mid-flight snack and a choice of a hot or cold breakfast.  On the back is a list of alcoholic beer, wines and spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks including tea and coffee.  The selection of juices and soft drinks aren’t listed so you need to ask.  The front cover was a photo of palm trees taken at Queensland’s Thala Beach Nature Reserve.  I’m guessing the photos will vary from time to time and depict other Australian locations as the food changes.  The concept is a good however I found the current photo quite unattractive and uninspiring.

Food/Drinks

10:25pm – menus were handed out whilst the plane was still stationary on the tarmac.

11:40pm – bottled water was distributed followed by amenity kits.

12:30am – dinner was served.  The choices were salad of chilli lime chicken with quinoa and black beans, fusilli pasta with tomato and spinach sauce and beef tagine with carrot, beans and rice.  We both chose the beef tagine which was quite nice.  The meals were served with herb bread and chocolate mousse cake which were both delicious.

Some hours later – a midnight snack of Margherita empanadas were served but we must have been sleeping as we missed these.

The self service bar was available for snacks and drinks between meals and contained water, juice, a limited supply of soft drinks, apples and Kit Kats.

5:25am – breakfast was handed out with a choice of scrambled eggs with bacon, chicken sausage, hash brown and roasted tomato or a seasonal fruit plate.  Both were accompanied by an orange and cranberry muffin and a yoghurt with strawberry compote.  We had the hot breakfast.

Restroom

The restrooms on board the Qantas A380-800 are large compared to some aircraft but still not that big.  There is hand wash and hand cream by the wash basin.  There are about 15 restrooms located between the two levels of the plane with at least one being a wheelchair accessible one.  The cleanliness varied throughout the flight.

Service

The service was typical of Qantas.  Staff are friendly and professional but you’re not made to feel special as on some airlines I’ve flown.

Scheduling

Scheduled Boarding 9:45pm – Delayed

Scheduled Departure 10:30pm – Delayed – commenced taxiing at 11:07pm

Scheduled Arrival: 7:30am (Sydney time) – Delayed – arrived 7:46am

With cargo still being loaded onto the plane, we took off nearly 40 minutes late but managed to make up most of this time on the flight so we landed very smoothly just 16 minutes late.

Pros

• The A380-800 is a very quiet plane making the long flight more comfortable
• The self-service snack bar is a great idea for when you are hungry between meals
• Amenity kits were handed out to Economy passengers
• The food was enjoyable
• I liked the idea of the camera outside the aircraft so you had a good view of the runway when taking off and landing
• The leg room is much better than on the 787-9 we flew in with American Airlines

Cons

• The meals seemed to contain less items on the trays compared with some other airlines
• Not as wide a choice of drinks as some airlines
• Internet is not available on this flight
• No towelettes are supplied to passengers prior to meal times
• Better attention could have been payed to cleanliness as my seat-belt had chocolate on it
• This was an older plane

Conclusion

The flight on Qantas’ A380 from Los Angeles to Sydney was pretty good.  The food was tasty and the seats were comfortable with sufficient leg room to not feel too cramped during the 15 hour journey.  It was an older aircraft and more attention could be paid to cleanliness but the staff were friendly and the pilot did a great job landing the plane so smoothly.