Due to the ongoing staff disputes at Qantas I decided to eliminate the gamble of will I/won't I be delayed etc and I opted to fly upto Sydney for work with DJ. This decision was made easier by my recent Velocity Gold upgrade as part of their status match promotion a couple of months ago. A big change for me as I usually use QF.
As soon as I got the booking confirmation from work I logged in to select my seat - a new thing for DJ - and was able to select row 3 both ways, this is the first economy row.
Arriving at the airport I was able to use the new Lounge at MEL. Very nice, not as busy as the Qantas Club for a similar time of day (0630). Nice touch that they scan your BP on entry and as I had done OLCI wrote the gate number on the BP. My only criticism is that the MEL Lounge is landside meaning you have to leave sooner to clear security. Although they do have a priority screening lane for Business/PE/Platinum and Gold FFs - again new and matching QF.
Nice clearly marked out priority boarding lane and they did board this line first and as they boarded by seat row and use the rear door, I thought, boarding was a bit smoother than QF.
It was a nice new 738 in the white colour scheme which I prefer over the tacky bright red (which looks very tired up close). New seating scheme greyey browny leather with coloured adjustable headrests. First huge change is that the old PE seats have been replaced with 2 rows of 2x2 business class seats and a fixed divider with a purple hued 'window' to allow sightlines. The legroom in row 3 is excellent - I am only 5'8'' and when seated I couldn't put my feet on the divider and there was still a foot well under the divider.
What there wasn't was any IFE screens - not that I like the DJ IFE product. PE were offered digEplayers.
Full fare tickets also get catering - drink and snack and on the afternoon flight I came back on a glass of wine with a wrap and a chocolate. This gets offered before they offer the sell service and it is strictly monitored from the pax manifest.
The return aircraft was an old red one but with the new business seats and a new row 3 but the rest of the seating was still the old blue leather.
DJ are moving away from the low cost model and I like it. Although, it has to be said that when booking personal travel, even well in advance, unless you are lucky enough to get a sale fare they are expensive when compared to QF (and lounge access is nice). I noticed that the CC served PE and then spent the majority of the rest of flight serving/selling in Y and if I was in PE I would be disappointed with only one offer of refreshment. I guess this is down to having 4CC rather than QFs 5 with one dedicated to J.
I think I will move over to DJ now - specially as I have already earned enough status points to renew Gold until Sep 2013 thanks to our trip back to the UK in September with Etihad. And it appears their tie up with Singapore is getting the requisite approval.
I wouldn't mind trying their new Business class on the transcontinental flights on the airbus.
I thought I would just let you guys who are, or considering, heading down under know the changes - which I think are for the better. Go DJ.
As soon as I got the booking confirmation from work I logged in to select my seat - a new thing for DJ - and was able to select row 3 both ways, this is the first economy row.
Arriving at the airport I was able to use the new Lounge at MEL. Very nice, not as busy as the Qantas Club for a similar time of day (0630). Nice touch that they scan your BP on entry and as I had done OLCI wrote the gate number on the BP. My only criticism is that the MEL Lounge is landside meaning you have to leave sooner to clear security. Although they do have a priority screening lane for Business/PE/Platinum and Gold FFs - again new and matching QF.
Nice clearly marked out priority boarding lane and they did board this line first and as they boarded by seat row and use the rear door, I thought, boarding was a bit smoother than QF.
It was a nice new 738 in the white colour scheme which I prefer over the tacky bright red (which looks very tired up close). New seating scheme greyey browny leather with coloured adjustable headrests. First huge change is that the old PE seats have been replaced with 2 rows of 2x2 business class seats and a fixed divider with a purple hued 'window' to allow sightlines. The legroom in row 3 is excellent - I am only 5'8'' and when seated I couldn't put my feet on the divider and there was still a foot well under the divider.
What there wasn't was any IFE screens - not that I like the DJ IFE product. PE were offered digEplayers.
Full fare tickets also get catering - drink and snack and on the afternoon flight I came back on a glass of wine with a wrap and a chocolate. This gets offered before they offer the sell service and it is strictly monitored from the pax manifest.
The return aircraft was an old red one but with the new business seats and a new row 3 but the rest of the seating was still the old blue leather.
DJ are moving away from the low cost model and I like it. Although, it has to be said that when booking personal travel, even well in advance, unless you are lucky enough to get a sale fare they are expensive when compared to QF (and lounge access is nice). I noticed that the CC served PE and then spent the majority of the rest of flight serving/selling in Y and if I was in PE I would be disappointed with only one offer of refreshment. I guess this is down to having 4CC rather than QFs 5 with one dedicated to J.
I think I will move over to DJ now - specially as I have already earned enough status points to renew Gold until Sep 2013 thanks to our trip back to the UK in September with Etihad. And it appears their tie up with Singapore is getting the requisite approval.
I wouldn't mind trying their new Business class on the transcontinental flights on the airbus.
I thought I would just let you guys who are, or considering, heading down under know the changes - which I think are for the better. Go DJ.
Rob
