Qantas reveal multi-million-dollar upgrade

[Greg McDonald]

From News.com.au:

QANTAS has announced a multi-million-dollar upgrade to its in-flight and airport offerings.
Chief executive Alan Joyce revealed Qantas would follow the launch of the next generation of check-in facilities, due to start trials in Perth today, with a program designed to refresh "all components of the travelling experience'', The Australian reports.

Mr Joyce said the upgrade, which would see an additional $40 million spent on lounges alone, was a significant investment ``in refreshing our product, our service, our food, our infrastructure and lounges''.

The program is designed to make the Qantas product more consistent across its aircraft types as well as between domestic and international operations.

..Mr Joyce said the airline would invest millions to upgrade the business, premium economy and economy cabins and seats on nine Boeing 747s to bring them into line with its popular A380.

"The 747s will have the look, feel and the actual hard product that the A380 has,'' Mr Joyce said.

"And then the look and feel of the international product will come into the domestic product in the air and on the ground.''

Domestic business class will also be revamped from November to provide new menus designed by celebrity chef Neil Perry, who is responsible for the airline's premium-class food on international routes. Mr Joyce said the new menus and the facelift in domestic Qantas Club lounges were designed to give passengers a consistent feel both internationally and domestically.

Mr Joyce threw down the gauntlet to Virgin Blue, saying Qantas would prevail no matter what the competition did.

"The advantages that we have in our very strong corporate position in the domestic market are our network, so we're absolutely continuing to grow that,'' Mr Joyce said.

[Brad Myer]

The 747s will have the look, feel and the actual hard product that the A380 has,'' Mr Joyce said.

"And then the look and feel of the international product will come into the domestic product in the air and on the ground.''

Interesting....

Rumours are all current B73Hs will be refitted with the new domestic seats/AVOD, to match the new domestic A332s.

Anyone heard more?

[Dan Hammond]

If there is truth to that rumour then its going to one very expensive refit of the 73H fleet.

[Oliver Gigacz]

Qantas have said all new domestic aircraft (Except Regional) will be fitted with the new AVOD.

I would love to see it on the older 738s, but it is going to cost a lot.

[Andrew M]

The 747 refit to Skybed II was announced back on the 18th of Feb

http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn...010/feb10/4017

B747-400
* nine B747-400 will be upgraded and fitted with Qantas' A380 standard seats and inflight product, including a fully flat Skybed sleeper seat in Business, an award-winning Marc Newson designed and Recaro manufactured seat in Economy and state-of-the-art on-demand Panasonic inflight entertainment in all classes
* First class cabins will be removed and Business seats installed in their place
* the three-class configuration will offer 359 seats (58 Business, 36 Premium Economy and 265 Economy), an increase of 52 seats overall

[Brenden S]

Oh and maybe a upgrade of some better food instead of cheap sanga's