Qantas (961 pictures & videos)

8/10

Soeren Krumrey

Australia (SYD) to New Zealand (AKL), 20 Dec 2017

Business Class

Lunch , Special meal: no
Jetconnect crew on a 737-800, "lunch" service. As approximately every second Qantas trans-tasman flight, this Qantas service was delayed by over an hour. Given we only had a bit over an hour connection time to our LATAM flight in Auckland, we started to panic slightly when the extended delay became obvious. The lovely lady in the QF lounge didn't really help calm our nerves by telling us that "You might never know, obviously you won't receive your luggage but you might still be lucky and make it!". Upon boarding, we were offered water or juice but unfortunately no champagne (even though Tattinger was available later on the actual flight). When we had originally booked this trip, we had been on the EK A380 and only got bumped down to Qantas when Emirates decided to cull this route. Gone our hope to start the long holiday in South America with a glass of champagne but luckily the meal itself would be on the nicer side. We asked the purser straight upon boarding if she could keep us updated about the flight connection and she assured us she'd "ask the pilot" straight away. I'm not sure if flight attendants ever bother the pilots with their pesky guests' connection issues but as expected, this didn't happen. Instead, the purser was full on busy for the rest of boarding with calming down the unruly screaming children from the cheaper seats in the back of the plane. When we politely asked mid flight if she had heard anything about our connection, we received a rather rude "Well, you need to give me some time" and we couldn't help wonder why in the world one and the same crew member would raise our expectations so strangely straight upon boarding when we then turn into nuisance when daring to follow up two hours later. Strange and an unnecessarily bad service experience. Luckily, the meal service itself was rather lovely. I always love the soups on airplanes so decided for the tomato soup while my partner went for the prawns. They strangely didn't have any bowls for the soup so I was served it from a coffee cup and then refilled half way through. The crew was highly apologetic about this though I couldn't have cared less, especially as the soup itself was delicious. I myself am allergic to seafood so couldn't try the salad but my partner assured me it was excellent as well. As always on Qantas, I loved the little churned butter which seriously costs 10 bucks for 200g at my fancy local grocery store. As tempted as I always am to buy it, I find this price obscene for a block of butter and therefore just can't ever get myself to buy it- even more I enjoy it on my Qantas flights though! For the main, I went for the roast pork while my partner opted for the pasta. The pork meat was definitely on the cheaper side but you get pork so rarely on flights these days so I didn't complain. The corn mash on the side was quite tasty, actually. The highlight though must have been the pasta dish which was the exact opposite of those dreadful 'chicken or pasta' choices that I vaguely remember in horror from my Economy days. Pasta fresh and perfectly cooked al dente, sauce delicious with lovely shaved Parmesan on top, yumm. A little bit of a small portion but definitely the better quality choice over the pork. Finally we had the choice between ice cream and cheese so my partner went for the former while I went for the latter. The pseudo-artisinal Maggie Beer ice cream came with no less than 5 E numbers while my cheese came with a lovely sticky wine instead ;-) Upon landing, we dared to carefully ask the purser again about our connection and she "had it totally forgotten". She then really spoke to the flight crew and shortly after announced that someone will wait outside the plane for the people connecting to LATAM 800 as apparently there were ten more parties with the same issue down the back. Turned out that the guy from Auckland airport waiting outside was not there to rush us through the terminal so that we get out flight but rather told us to "rush as you might not get it!". Thank you very much, that was all very well done with this connection! Hint: We managed to get the connection after running like crazy through half the terminal, only to then wait around at the gate for a almost 45 minutes delayed international flight to Santiago.

Champagne, wine, white sticky, more champagne

Meal yummie, crew so so

Date added: 2018-01-31   //   Flight: 3:10   //   Aircraft: 737-800