It's rare that an airline has an inaugural which makes the front page of the newspaper in a major market like Sydney, Australia... Due to a rather fortunate scheduling of meetings last week, I was able to arrange to be on the first QF A380 flying between SYD and LAX.
A few weeks back, my status with AAdvantage reached the threshold for Executive Platinum (oneworld Emerald), so I was really looking forward to both the ground experience as much as I was the flight for a change. In particular, Emerald allows access to first class check-in facilities and lounges. Normally not a big deal, but the First lounge in SYD is said to be one of the best around.
In some airports, First Class is in a closed in area. At SYD, it's in a 5' high walled off area, with the only real differentiating features being a few comfy chairs and low tables, and several smartly uniformed luggage assistants.
The agent was quite friendly and efficient, until she noticed that I was still showing as Sapphire in her computer. She started to lecture me about being in the wrong queue, but I simply remarked that QF's systems hadn't been updated yet since the change had just occurred.
While tier status does allow use of premium check-in facilities, that's about it. She didn't tag the bags as priority or offer a pass for the Express Lane thru security. Some agents do it out of courtesy, others reserve it for the truly full-fare customers.
The Express Lane turned out to not matter -- there were only two people ahead of me at passport control, and three ahead of me at security.
Five minutes later, I was at the door to the First Lounge (which is next to the Qantas Club, above the concourse). Agent at the doorway asked for my BP, but took my word for being Emerald. Short walk around a curved marble hallway to an escalator, and up into the lounge.
At the desk, an agent also asked for my BP, but I was a little more prepared this time -- I'd already pulled up the email I'd received from AAdvantage confirming my status change, and handed her my iPhone. She laughed, and said, "come on in!"
Actually, it was even better than that. One of the workers asked if I'd been to the lounge before, which I obviously hadn't. She walked me around on the quick tour to show me where everything was, and then brought me to the windows overlooking the A380
Now, I'm not a fan of the way The Whale looks. But, the view.... it was an airline junkie's dream. I was at tail height overlooking the gate, and the windows gave a wonderful view of both the airport as well as the Sydney skyline.
The lounge space was very open, although I have to admit the the decor was a little too contemporary for my tastes, to the point of being almost uninteresting. Marble along the inside walls and walkways, plush carpet in the seating areas, and large wooden beams dividing the area along the windows into eight or nine areas.
The two central areas were set up with several small dining tables, and the remaining areas each had several comfy chairs each, with TV's available on one side of the dining area, and quiet areas on the other side of the dining area, and a couple of PC workstations at the far end. One of the quiet areas was blocked off for a private party, which I'm assuming was for local QF officials and dignitaries there for the launch. There's also a library and spa treatments available for full F customers.
First things first, lunch....
I found the "all day dining" menu as good if not better than anything I'd had in SYD that week. Options included a crusted chicken breast, fish, and pasta. I opted for an excellent cream of mushroom soup, and a beef stir fry with rice, followed up with an ice cream sundae... Yep, I probably went a little overboard with food in the lounge because I knew I'd be in economy and not business...
Flight was called around 1330. Boarding was over-efficient -- with the kickoff, there were three times as many staff as usual... so no lines at the EGRs. Boarding via three jetways, one for each cabin on the lower deck, and one on the upper deck.
The Premium Economy cabin occupies Zone E on the upper deck, which required walking thru most of the business class cabin. Passing thru, the J seat appeared to be identical to the J seat on the 744, with perhaps a little more legroom.
The seat in Premium Economy was slightly narrower and certainly less functional than the J seat, but a world better than economy.
Multifunction console controller was set into the front of the seat divider, and I found it totally inaccessible if the tray table was out. Also in the seat divider was the 110V power plug, two ethernet plugs, and two USB ports. Only downside to this setup was that there was only one 110V per seat pair, which could prove to be troublesome if both pax wanted to use the power outlet.
Ethernet wasn't functional (although there is a wifi network running for the cabin supervisors' PDA's to connect with). USB's worked for recharging devices which can be recharged with a USB cable (including my iPhone). One of my seatmates was thinking it allowed the device's audio/video to be accessed on the TV, but I couldn't find a way for that to work, not that I was planning on watching video I'd brought with...
There are about 200 movie & TV short choices available, with about 50 or so children's programs including The Wiggles and Widow of Crocodile Hunter. Movie choices were fairly good -- the same 30 or so available on the 744 from the previous week, and then another 80 picks, including all the Oscar "Best Picture" winners from the previous 38 years.
The TV itself folded out of the left armrest, which opened up from the top. On other QF aircraft, it rotates from the front face of the seat. While it wasn't easy to extend, I did find the space inside the armrest to be a pretty good storage area for my laptop, or anything else less than about two inches thick. Only downside is that the storage space is partly open to the bottom, so small objects could fall thru.
Right armrest contained the fold-out tray table. As with the TV arm, I found it a little difficult to extract from the holder. In place, it slid out to near the edge of the seat, and height-wise cleared the drink/iPod holder (right armrest above the recline button) enough that my iPod could remain in place.
There's something identified as a legrest/footrest, but honestly, it was totally useless to me. Perhaps if you're 5' tall and your feet don't touch the floor, it would be usable. It came out on a 40 degree or so angle, and was otherwise incapable of being useful to prop my legs up on. It had a ratcheting flip-down footrest which allowed me to sit with my knees bent up, but only if the tray-table was stowed... About the only practical use I could find for it was to hide things like my shoes & laptop adapter during flight, lest they be tripped over by passers by.
Other little things I noticed...
1) Toilet seats on the A380 were truly next-gen... the lid & seat are spring loaded so that they float down rather than crashing down. Good from a quiet perspective. Potentially not good if you're in a bit of a hurry...
2) Partition next to 39D separates that seat from the adjacent lavatory. Nice touch in terms of privacy, and might make a good surface to lean against while sleeping.
3) Drop down changing table doesn't look as sturdy as the E145...
4) New uniforms for FA's. Brown is gone. Silver is in. Really matched the new interior colors on the A380 nicely, which are a light grey & silver. Jackets are still black.
Meal service was better than expected. Beef with tomato sauce, peas, carrots, and something called mashed potatoes, but it tasted more like powered eggs. The portions were slightly bigger than regular economy.
In addition, they also offered a choice of you-pick-the-ingredients toasty sandwiches at any point inflight, which is a big plus vs. normal economy. The only option in economy is similar to BA's "Raid The Larder", but limited to soft drinks, apples, and pre-packaged biscuits/cookies. Not what I considered filling, but on the way over, it was better than nothing. The toasty sandwich was much more filling and tasty.
During the flight, I took a stroll thru economy. There's a folding barrier at the top of the stairs leading to the lower deck. Some folks have asked if it's a class divider, but that's not the real reason. There's a cart lift between the main deck and upper deck, and the barrier is there to prevent carts from taking a tumble down the stairs. There wasn't a moment where it wasn't closed during the service, but for approach & departure it was stowed (covering up the door for the lift). That said, it also did serve as a bit of a deterrent for people from economy taking a stroll thru the upper deck.
It didn't stop me, though... Seat pitch in economy is noticeably less. Having three 12+ hour flights with QF under my belt in the past year, it didn't look any better than the 744 product. Only advantage to Y is they have seat back TV's as opposed to the armrest TV's, meaning they get to keep watching the moving map and tail camera thru landing. They also have traditional fold-out tray tables aside from the bulkheads & exit rows.
The only downside of the trip... 110V seat power didn't work for my seat. Not a major problem, except that I was really, really counting on it. I had some work to complete on the flight, and knew my connecting flights wouldn't have seat power so I needed to have a full charge when I arrived in LAX.
My seat "rebooted" twice as the cabin supervisor tried to address it. As a result, got to find out the "seat" runs a variant of RedHat Linux for accessing the Panasonic entertainment system... Downside is it took a good four minutes to start up from shutdown to the menu appearing, which seems just more than a bit slow.
After 20 minutes, the cabin supervisor finally figured out it was not just my seat... it was Row 38 and 39. And the galley. Two Panasonic reps were onboard and came back about two hours into the flight, and couldn't figure it out either. They took my laptop up to J to confirm it worked, and offered to charge it during the meal service... Not really having a choice, that's what I did.
Given the choice of taking premium economy again, I would. I think I'd probably opt for another seat. All of the seats in Premium Economy use the armrest-housed TV arm & tray tables, so there's no real advantage to sitting in a non-exit/bulkhead row aside perhaps from having the underseat storage available to you. The right side window in row 38 looked great -- it's an exit row, has a window, plus it also has the side-wall bin I like so much on the 747. I'm not a fan of having to crawl over someone else, so this blends the best of both seat types.
Other than the seat power issue, I gave the flight high marks, particularly for the responsiveness of the crew.
Labels: airlines, lounges
Random Observations From The Desert...
Let's assume there's a third vote on gay marriage in California. Statewide, more than 70% of blacks and Hispanics voted for 8. Given how those demographics have voted in other states, it's unlikely they're going to be swayed by the media (which is heavily biased) or activists. If anything, being second guessed on their vote might just polarize them even more than they already are...
OK, I admit it. I've been a fan of ER since it came on the air in 1995 or so. And this is the last season, so they've been winding down things.
Halfway thru the episode, none other than Mark Greene, Carrie Weaver, Robert Romano and Jerry the Desk Clerk appeared in a flashback scene that wasn't really a flashback, but new footage. Why new footage? Well, considering Mark died of cancer, Romano died being crushed by a helicopter several seasons ago, and Carrie quit medicine to become a TV host, they really had no easy way to bring them back for the final season. So, the producers came up with a flashback tying the new character Dr. Banfield to Mark Greene. Classy, actually.