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I arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport as a quick three-hour flight from my home airport in Columbus. I was excited for my trip to Australia! This was my second trip to Sydney. The first was right before all the COVID lockdowns.

I was itching to get back and as soon as Australia announced their reopening. I quickly booked flights. I’ve flown this route before, but in business class on an A380. This time I was in economy. I hasn’t looking forward to flying in economy.

After a long twelve-hour layover, it was finally time to board my flight.

Qantas Airlines 787-9 Economy Dallas/Fort Worth to Sydney: Review

Booking

Because of COVID, I had to cut my previous trip short. I was supposed to spend a week in Sydney then head to Hong Kong for a couple of nights before returning home on Cathay Pacific First Class. The Sydney to Hong Kong flight was a business class ticket I purchased for about $1,000 dollars. I used that for these economy tickets.

I briefly covered my issues booking in the introduction post for this trip. Using the flight credit was difficult. First, the Qantas website was not giving me the option to use the flight credit online. I ended up calling.

The first call I waited on hold for about two hours. This agent did not want to help me book over the phone. I mentioned several times that the website was not allowing me to book with my flight credit. Finally, she transferred me to technical support.

Technical support informed me because my flight credit was issued in Australian Dollars the website wouldn’t allow it’s use since the flight was in US Dollars. He quickly reissued it in American Dollars and sent me back to the phone booking agents.

After waiting on hold for another two hours, the next agent was a bit more helpful. I fed her the flights that I wanted including flight numbers. The agent did have an issue finding one of my flights. Her suggestion was to place the flights on hold so she could apply the credit.

I hopped onto my laptop and placed the flights I wanted on hold. I provided the record locator, and the agent was able to complete the booking. About a week later, I received an email from Qantas that my payment wasn’t processed, and my ticket was about to be cancelled. I knew something was wrong with the first booking because I never received a confirmation email. Turns out I owed an additional $2. A quick call resolved this issue.

I ended up booking CMH-DFW-SYD, SYD-BNE and BNE-LAX-BOS-CMH for $1,002. Now, that is a lot of cash. With that price, I would recommend using points and miles. The best option to book this would be through American Airlines.

Keep in mind AA does have dynamic pricing so prices will vary.

Check-In

Check-in occurred twice. Once in Columbus and again in Dallas. The process was simple both times. Although, the second time was inconvenient.

In Columbus, I was asked for my visa, COVID vaccine documents and passenger declaration form. After verifying my documents, I was my boarding pass from Columbus to Dallas. She informed me that Qantas won’t allow AA to issue their boarding passes. I don’t know if it was a COVID restriction.

When I arrived in Dallas, I headed to the AA Flagship Lounge. Since I have Platinum Pro status, I get access even when on economy tickets. I didn’t want to leave the lounge when the check-in desks opened at 7PM, I asked if the lounge agents could assist me. I was informed that a Qantas agent typically showed between 6 and 6:30PM. But it was after 7PM when an agent finally showed.

I represented my visa, COVID vaccine documents and passenger declaration form. Once they were verified, I received my Qantas boarding pass.

Boarding

Boarding began about 45 minutes before the 10:30PM departure. The first passengers to board were passengers needing assistance and families. Then business class passengers. As I was trying to board, an employee tried to stop me since I had an economy ticket. I pointed out that I had oneworld emerald status and he let me board.

Seat

I assigned myself seat 52H. Economy takes up the second half of the plane in rows 40 – 59. 52H was in the larger section of economy seats. I would have preferred the smaller economy cabin in rows 40 to 44. But there were no aisle seats alone at the time of booking. I was hoping to get an entire row to myself for the nearly 16-hour flight to Sydney.

52H is an aisle seat on the right side of the plane. Qantas arranges economy in a 3-3-3 cabin configuration. That’s a bit better than other airlines. I’ve experienced this same cabin configuration on British Airways from LHR to JFK.

I was hoping to have at least the middle seat empty. But luck wasn’t on my side. The flight was completely full this evening.

There wasn’t a ton of legroom even for me as a short person. It didn’t help that my backpack didn’t complete fit underneath the seat in front of me. I ended up putting it in the overhead bin after the meal service.

The tray table was large. I really appreciated it. It easily accommodated my 16-inch MacBookPro. One feature I liked was it could be folded in half. That was great for keeping a drink accessible while watching the IFE.

Waiting at my seat upon boarding was a blanket, small thin pillow, headphones, and an amenity kit. The pillow was pretty worthless in my opinion. I ended up throwing both the blanket and pillow into the overhead bin.

The amenity kit only contained a few items. The bag could easily be used as a cord organizer after the flight. The kit had an eye shade for people that like it dark when they sleep, ear plugs to keep loud cabins quiet and a toothbrush and toothpaste. The kit worked perfectly fine for me. After eating and trying to catch some sleep, I used the toothbrush and toothpaste.

The IFE (television) was a great size for an economy deal. Screen quality was clear and responsive. There were tons of new movies for flyers of all ages. Seasons of popular TV shows were also available. I noticed a girl next to me playing games for most of the flight.

Bathroom

I used the bathroom several times throughout the flight. The first was right after the dinner meal service. The bathrooms for economy were located in two places. The one in the front was located between the smaller and larger economy cabins and one in the rear of the cabin. I only used the bathrooms in the front of my cabin.

The bathroom was already dirty. Water was all over the counters and floors. Or maybe the wet floor was pee?

The bathroom was an okay size. You could easily change into PJs before you tried to sleep.

Food and Drink

One thing I’ve never understood is meal service on red eyes. This flight departed at 10:30PM. Meal service didn’t start until an hour after departure. Pretty late for dinner in my opinion.

Flight attendants first started with drinks. Options included water, soda, and several different types of wine. I sticked to water.

For the main course, I chose the TexMex Chicken Salad. This was a cold chicken salad with corn and rice. The chicken had a good taste. The rice wasn’t completely cooked. I took a couple of bites and didn’t finish it. We were also provided a roll. It felt doughy. Dessert was a brownie.

A couple of times during the flight, flight attendants came around with snacks. One snack was half a ham and cheese grilled cheese. I normally don’t like ham, but it was pretty good. The other snack was Kit Kats.

Breakfast service started two hours before arrival. I chose the hot option. The meal was served all on one plate. The hot option contained scrambled eggs, mushrooms, salsa, sausage links, a hashbrown, brown sugar muffin and blueberry Greek yogurt. The eggs were fine. The sausage links tasted burnt. The hashbrown was soggy. The muffin was dry.

After serving the meal, coffee and tea was brought around.  

Qantas Airlines 787-9 Economy Dallas/Fort Worth to Sydney Bottom Line

This was my first flight over six hours in economy. I didn’t think it was that bad. I actually felt better after this flight than my flight to Amsterdam. I would absolutely fly this product again.

Food could have absolutely been better. I debated if I should eat at the airport before the flight. I’m glad I decided to since the dinner was a letdown. Snacks and breakfast were better. After sixteen hours, I was happy to get off the flight and head through security. I had a dream hotel waiting for me.

Anyone else fly Qantas economy? What was your experience? Let me know in the comments.  

These opinions in this article are the author’s not those of a bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.