Martin J

Right, need to get my flight booked for the move in 3 weeks.

Priced Emirates Economy at just under £800

Qantas Economy at just under £700

Qantas Premium Economy at £1,700!!

Anyone recommend an airline for comfort or are they all much of a same?

I flew with Emirates and BA (Premium Economy) first time round but felt there was very little difference in comfort or seat dimensions.

I was shocked to see the price of Qantas Premium Economy though! Almost £2k!!!

mvagusta

You need to tell us where your flying from and to as most airlines going to Oz go from Heathrow with the exception of Emirates and Singapore.

Airline recommendation is a personnel thing. Personally I take Emirates as they fly from my local airport and have the shortest flying time to Perth. You also need to watch with Emirates as the cheaper prices sometimes have a long stopover between planes.

Are the prices for one way or return. I paid £787 return at the beginning of feb with emirates although the stopover was long.

I have also tried Thai from Heathrow on business class and I would highly recommend them.

You could try seat guru as they will give you the seat pitch by airline and also recommend what seats to ask for.

Pollyana

Qantas Premium Economy is virtually Business Class, thats why the price, great way to travel if you can afford it, I usually upgrade to it with points when I travel and its good

newjersey

A bystander Question: Did they become so much better, qantas were getting so much bad press for as long as I can remember? Emirates gets my vote, apart from descent leg room in economy their food is as good as it gets in an airplane IMO. Dubai airport is not a place you want to get stuck in for 12 hours but apart from that emirates is one of the better ones I have ever used.

Pollyana

I've always been a Qantas fan, I find them to be as good as you'll get. Seat pitch is OK, food generally pretty good and I like their frequent Flyer scheme. Won't touch emirats again with a barge pole, i did 10 hours in Dubai airport and it was horrendous, as was the flight.

mvagusta

Normally if your stopover is over 8 hours emirates will give you a hotel room and a free meal. There are other options like paying for the Dubai airport business or first class lounges in terminal 1.

DadAgain

I'm also a bit of a Qantas fan.

In my opinion all airlines are much of a muchness heres the truth:
- You WILL be uncomfortable in economy (particularly if you're tall )
- You will be bored (no amount of free grog and movies can hide the fact that you're sitting in one spot for 24 hours)
- You will feel knackered when you arrive.
- Food will be edible but uninspiring
- For any destination i.e. London->Brisbane you will have the same grief dealing with airport security, checking queues, Australian AQIS inspectors etc etc regardless of airline...

The main variables in terms of different airlines are:
- PRICE
- Timetable
- Loyalty Scheme.

If you're not fussed abotu loyalty schemes, then I'd be making a call based entirely on price and timetable. The differences to your experience as a result of differing airlines reputations will pale into absolute insignificance compared to the difference between a 90 minute stopover and a 11 hour stop over.

In terms of Price Qantas are often the cheapest (not always)
In terms of timetable they pretty much always in my experience have short layovers in Singapore (short layovers are good and Singapore is the most tollerable of all international airports to have a transit stop in)
Qantas FFs are not too bad - Yes it can be painful finding redemption seats in peak periods (but it can be done) - but there are a gazillion Australian credit cards that give you chances to earn points and if you end up doing any domestic travel for work reasons theres a good chance you'll rack up a bunch of QFF points in no time (other loyalty schemes are a lot harder to top up via local business trips).

So in the last 12 years I have travelled with other airlines and have had family use all the usual suspects (Korean, Emirates, Singapore, BA, Brunei) - but have found Qantas to be a better fit for us.

(Example we're going to the UK for xmas this year for $800 taxes + $800 airfares for 4 of us return! [the joy of using QFF points and having 1 family member get employee family discounts]. We'll have a 2 hour turnaround in Singapore and arrive 30 minutes drive from my parents.)

DeadVim

Singapore Air every time for me until they demonstrate less than perfect customer service.

10 legs with them so far, most with child, no issues whatsoever.

bcworld

Essentially yes! People get waaaaaay too het up about airlines on here. A single poor experience, which can just be based on their state of mind or inability to get to sleep on a flight leads to an airline being put forever in the sinner bucket!

The thing is all airlines have their bad crews (certainly Qantas & Emirates do, Singapore might be the one exception)...but once people have formed a very strong loyalty to an airline they give them a lot of leeway sometimes.

For travelling in economy as others have said the main criteria I would look at would be:

Price
Travel time (overall length of journey and what time of day suits you)
Ability to transit at friendly airports
Inflight Entertainment (especially if there are kids involved - Emirates wins this hands down over QF by the way - there are some carriers like Thai who still only offer mainscreen ent to economy pax)
Frequent flyer scheme (I don't particularly like QFF but once in Aus you are a bit of a slave to it...but there are ways to credit points to other carriers...hopefully one day soon Virginblue will join a decent alliance and QFF will get the kick up the @rse it needs)

harrip

Have to agree with BCWorld.

All airlines have seats these days, similar food and service and I can think of lots of things I'd sooner spend my hard earned cash on than extra legroom for 24 hours.

roaringmouse

Better than having to stand for 24 hours on a plane.

DeadVim

Mmmm, comfy ...

Weebie

Qantas is easily the best. At least you know that it won't crash so that's what you pay for.

Emirates for instance is the closest a airline has come to a major airline disaster in Australia.

bcworld

How do you know it won't crash?

Qantas has had some very serious incidents in the past few years and there's an element of luck involved in the fact that some of them didn't end up with fatalities.

According to some newscom story the world's safest airlines are:

1. BA
2. Air Canada
3. ANA

Centurion

That's right. Because large holes being blown out the side of your plane midflight, engines exploding and several cockpit fires and other faults in the last few months make the flying dog truly the worlds safest airline. By safest - I mean luckiest.

But then, John Travolta does the safety intro video on board now. I trust him and he doesn't believe in aliens or anything silly.