Qantas cuts business class on Melbourne-HK, A330 replaces 747
By John Walton, August 24 2011
In brief: When Qantas cuts the Hong Kong-London Heathrow extension of its Melbourne-Hong Kong flights in March, it will also downsize the plane used from a Boeing 747-400 to an Airbus A330.
That means fewer business class seats -- and in a single cabin just in front of economy rather than having the option of picking the quiet and spacious upper deck on a 747.
Following a tip-off from reader Ning He, we've confirmed that flight QF29 to Hong Kong and QF30 to Melbourne will drop down to the Airbus A330-300. Flights will, however, remain on a daily schedule.
Flight times remain similar, with QF29 departing Melbourne at 1415 (with one-hour adjustments for daylight savings) and arriving in Hong Kong at 2145. There's then a choice of two British Airways flights if you're connecting to Heathrow, BA26 at 2315 or BA28 at 2345.
On the return flight, QF30 leaves Melbourne at 1855 and arrives in Melbourne at 0710 the following day. Pick BA27 to connect from Heathrow unless you want to spend a few extra hours in Hong Kong: BA27 arrives in Hong Kong at 1605, rather than the earlier BA25, which arrives at 1305.
Trying to figure out the best seats in business class on those Qantas flights? It's the first "International" section in our guide to the best business class seats on Qantas' Airbus A330 planes.
Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
Not really a cut to J going to HKG, just the removal of the J seats going through to LHR. I agree that the aircraft change is a shame though! Not sure if you've also seen the updated BKK schedule - QF27/28 replacing QF1/2 which are moving to the SYD-SIN-LHR rotation. New timings mean about a 5 hour connection in BKK but still a 744.
26 Oct 2011
Total posts 1
The 744 has 14F, 52J, 32W (I don't think Fs sold on this flight) whilst the A333 has only the 32J. However, many of those seats would have been occupied by pax travelling MEL-LHR, so the number of seats for MEL-HKG pax should be around the same as today. In case you're interested, I recently blogged on the implications of axing HKG-LHR here https://davidkeating.wordpress.com/.
Agree that BKK timings are quite average; however, through-pax can just travel via SIN with BKK being more for a stopover.
12 Jul 2011
Total posts 75
Hope they don't replace QF127/128 with A330. Do they plan to?
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
They would drop the extra weekly flights before dropping 127/8 to an A333 imo - the A330 fleet is now going to be seriously stretched so any flights that can justify a 744 will have one given their surplus of those aircraft.
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