Determining EXACTLY what 747 Aircraft configuration (or any for that matter) your Qantas flight will use?

Determining EXACTLY what 747 Aircraft configuration (or any for that matter) your Qantas flight will use?

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Hi guys.

I've booked a flight QF6 SIN-SYD via a One World partner, Jet Airways (codeshare). Thus, I have no way of accessing the booking via Qantas.com and so no lovely Qantas online seat selection (like normally), either.

I definitely want to select the right seat. I want to know whether it's an upgraded 747, an old one, and if so exactly WHAT one it is. (There are a ridiculous four cabin configurations across five aircraft groups!)

Without the 'horse's mouth' of, as it were, direct access to the computer system which guarantees I'm looking at exactly the right seating plan for my flight in question (aircraft being changed a week before or a couple days before (or on the day), aside), is there any way to find out exteriorly?

I'm even doubting that the average phone assistant can reliably tell me exactly what aircraft configuriation the flight in question is assigned for!

After much research, I've noted down the following sources for trying to find out the exact cabin configuration:

- Jet Airways online booking area. (It says '744', which I don't think narrows it down to anything much between the five different Qantas 747 instances available here: http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/aircraft-seat-map-boeing-744er/global/en http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/aircraft-seat-map-boeing-744/global/en)

- Qantas.com public flight timetable: it merely links to this page - (http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/aircraft-seat-map-boeing-744/global/en) so seems to only indicate 'one of the non ER instances of Qantas 747' which isn't very indicative, it could be either an upgraded VH-OJS/VH-OJT/VH-OJU, or one of the older ones in the other three groups.)

- Seatguru.com thinks it's: http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Qantas_Airways/Qantas_Airways_Boeing_747-400RR.php (the last one in the 'non ER' list on Qantas.com - 275 economy seats)

- Seatmaestro.com wisely doesn't make a conclusion and gives a list to choose from.

- Seatexpert.com is the same.

- Looking at patterns of past flights of QF6 on planefinder.net and flightradar24.com (http://planefinder.net/data/flights/QF6 http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/qf6), well as you can see it uses a range of aircraft configurations. The most common one being the one that seatguru.com claims my upcoming flight to be, followed by the 'A333' (of which there appears to only be one configuration - different to the A330-200 ones), followed by the '14 First; 66 Business; 40 Premium Economy; 187 Economy' particular config, then the '747-400ER'.

My flight is this coming Wednesday.

Is there some special flight data website for *upcoming* flight aircrafts (instead of just current/past ones like planefinder.net) or is the only way to possibly find out for sure, by ringing up and being extremely particular about asking 'what row economy starts at' (so I know what seat map to refer to in picking my seat - they're all different and this is the easiest bullet-proof question to ask them in finding out that I can think of)?

Thanks

Ring them up to select your seat, and ask what row economy starts at.

Expertflyer is currently showing an unrefurbished 56J/40W/275Y for Weds.

You might also try checkmytrip.com, but I'm not sure it will work with Jet Airways.

Hi frenchglen,

Was there something specific you wanted to know about your flight on Wednesday or did you want to find out the configuration just for the sake of it?

As indicated by Happy Trails, it would appear QF6 on Wed, 31 Aug is operated using a non refurbished 747. You can tell by looking at the configuration of the upper deck. 

Alternatively you can call Qantas and enquire. They would still be able to advise you even if your booking has been ticketed by QF's non-Oneworld partner, Jet Airways.

If your objective is merely to pick a seat, you can alway use the free expertflyer app or website to choose an available seat (assuming you hold an appropriate status with QF or another OW FF programme to allow advance seat selection). 

If however you wish to enjoy a more up-to-date inflight product, a full-proof plan ought to have been flying with BA on their 777-300ER, which is used for all flights to Sydney via SIN.

My recent experience of selecting a seat on a Qantas 747 shows that it's not reliable.  A week before the flight from SYD to JNB they switched to another 747 with a different seating plan.

I managed to reliably select a seat on QF 51, a 744.

I have flown on QF5/6 a few times in the last few months and when it has been a 744 it has been the unrefurbished version with First Class seats being used for Business. Having said that... I am on QF5 in a couple of weeks and it is the unrefurbished 744 that used to be on the old QF5/6 FRA run with Business in the nose section.