Flight review: Flying Qantas between Sydney and Brisbane, Australia

We left off after spending two nights in Sydney at what was possibly the coolest experience in the city, the Roar and Snore and the Wildlife Retreat overnight experiences at the Taronga Zoo. Our next stop is Brisbane. Bluey’s World just opened and since my two little ones are obsessed with the Australian show, we welcomed the opportunity to check it out.

Because my daughter was in the hospital in the weeks leading up to our trip, I wasn’t 100% sure we were going to be able to travel. So I used miles instead of paying cash for our flights, even though it wasn’t the best deal. I knew I wanted to fly Qantas since they’re a Oneworld partner and I have elite status on American Airlines, which grants me special perks like free assigned seats, priority check-in and boarding, as well as free baggage and lounge use.

Qantas has a flight practically every hour between Sydney and Brisbane and when I checked AA.com, Qantas only had award space available on the two early flights, 6am and 7am. I did not want to get up that early so I put the early flight on a free, five-day hold and waited to see if more award space would open up closer to departure. It usually does and fortunately it did in this case, too.

First, the last flight (9:30pm) opened up, which was too late but I put it on hold. A few days later, the 3pm flight opened up. I jumped at booking it, even though I was in the middle of getting a haircut. My elderly Italian barber must have been like, “Please! Giovanni! Keepa your head straight.”

I ended up using 40K AA miles plus $93 in tax for the four of us, which isn’t too bad.

We arrived at Sydney’s Domestic Terminal about 90 minutes prior to departure. There was just one person working the business class check-in, which was really ridiculous, especially since there’s always at least one passenger who has problems with their ticket. It took about 20 minutes to get to an agent. Luckily, another agent opened up an additional desk.

I’d heard that Qantas weighs not only checked bags but carry-ons, too so I wore my Scottevest to hold my heavy laptop so my computer bag wouldn’t be over the 10kg (22lb) limit. But to my surprise, they didn’t weigh our carry-on at check-in or at the gate.

There was no line at security and flying domestically in Australia is so easy. Just put your bags in a bin and you don’t have to take out electronic devices or liquids. Belts do need to come off but shoes don’t.

Our next stop was the Qantas lounge, which had a super long line as their agents were working with customers who had flight problems. Turns out there were a lot of delays and cancellations, thanks to a nasty storm.

Fortunately, one of the friendly staff members took matters into her own hands, called everyone up, looked at their boarding passes to make sure they were allowed to enter and we were in after a five-minute wait.

The Qantas lounge is pretty solid with good food on both ends of the main hall.

My kids loved the idea of making their own sandwiches with a hot press. My wife made them cheese quesadillas.

I had a chicken sandwich with green goddess and sundried tomatoes. Natalie had the potato leak soup.

The lounge has free WiFi  and customers just need to watch a 30-second advertisement to access it. Like many of the flights that day, ours was delayed too, by 2.5 hours, which is no fun but especially with little kids. However, my kids have turned out to be great travelers and for the most part, just roll with the punches. They sat and colored; thankfully my wife never forgets paper and markers when we travel.

When it was time to board, we were able to board first with Zone A. Qantas, which is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, uses a 737-800 on this route and I’ve got to say, it’s not comfortable. I sat in seat 7D and my family sat in the row in front of me. The flight attendants announced it was going to be a full flight but as luck would have it, I ended up getting an open seat between me and a business traveler. He was assigned the middle seat but the person in the window didn’t show up so he moved over (otherwise, it would have gotten awkward).

The seatbacks had small entertainment screens and the flight attendants passed out free headsets with a UNICEF envelope attached to it. Interestingly, if you choose entertainment in the kids section, you need to answer a few questions like departure city, destination and seat number before you can exit. I’ve never seen that before.

The seats are way too tight and uncomfortable but fortunately, my wife didn’t recline her seat (I didn’t recline mine either), as flight time was just one hour and nine minutes. What’s crazy is that the seatbelt sign went off four minutes after takeoff. You never see that in the U.S. and it was bad weather too boot.

QF528 was supposed to depart at 3pm but we ended up pushing back from the gate at 5:46pm and took off at 6:01pm. At 6:15pm, the flight attendants passed out tasty Hungarian salami with water crackers.

That was followed by drinks and I had bottled water. BTW: I saw lemonade on the menu but it’s basically Sprite.

When we landed, we went to the huge business class lounge so the kids could use a clean loo. BNE airport was nicely decorated for Christmas.

Our bags came out by time we arrived downstairs; it was a long walk.

Our driver was a little late picking us up and to make matters worse, he dropped us off at the wrong hotel, hich was unfortunate because by this time, it was late for our tired, jet lagged kids so I had to schlep bags all of our bags back downstairs and order an Uber. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes for one to arrive and to drive us to the right hotel.

Coming up next: I will tell you all about our hotel and our fun stay in Brisbane, which is attracting a lot more Americans, thanks to U.S. airlines starting service there, including Delta Air Lines, which just began flights to Brisbane from Los Angeles, flying three times per week on its flagship Airbus A350-900. This Delta flight alone will increase the number of seats between LAX and BNE by 56%, increasing the number of tourists flowing into Queensland.

FYI: As of today, Brisbane now has 31 flights per week from North America by five carriers from four major hubs, representing 135% of pre-Covid capacity.

KEEP READING

Part One: Flight Review: Our 11-hour flight on Fiji Airways from Los Angeles
Part Two: Getting from Nadi Int’l Airport to Castaway Island
Part Three: Hotel review: Castaway Island Resort
Part Four: Hotel review: Nanuku Resort Fiji
Part Five: Flight review: Fiji Airways from Nadi to Sydney
Part Six: Hands down the coolest place to stay in Sydney, Australia
Part Seven: The Wildlife Retreat at Taronga Zoo

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