Saturday, October 3, 2009

on increasingly inaccurate blog descriptions

Well, despite my previous protestations, I have now officially travelled in business class on a business trip, making a slight
mockery of this blog's justification. Presumably due to the much-publicised fact that business travellers are abandoning business class en masse in these times of belt-tightening, Qantas is obviously stuck with the problem of some fairly inflexible seating layouts. They are obviously saving money by reducing capacity on some routes (the daily Sydney-Tokyo is now A330 instead of 747), which means fuller planes - except in business class (and presumably first). So us upper tier frequent flyers are obviously reaping the benefits.

My recent upgrade to business class was Sydney to Hong Kong, and this time I hit the jackpot - "turn to right sir and proceed up the stairs." For those who have never been upstairs on a 747, it's all business class - only 6 rows of four seats. Once one is seated, it's like the 350-odd people downstairs simply don't exist. Of course, given that it was a day flight, the appeal of lying flat wasn't so apparent, and you realise that the main benefit is really just that level of removal from your fellow passengers. This was unfortunately challenged by the woman I was sitting next to who spoke no English and was determined that I should make selections and adjustments to her entertainment program whenever necessary. Strangely she seemed quite content to watch Wake In Fright (1971 Australian outback film) without any subtitles.

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