I’m a huge fan of Asia, and it’s somewhere I’m always excited to return to. Interestingly, I still hadn’t yet visited Indonesia, and it’s somewhere I was interested in seeing. Bali is hugely popular with Australians, and our airlines offer many daily services to the region. In my case, I used a credit in my QF account and booked Qantas’s A330 in business class from Sydney to Denpasar.

This trip was all part of a status run I had booked and planned for some time. Unfortunately, a couple of things have come up that require me to be in Australia and due to that, I’ve had to reduce the overall amount of flying I had planned. Even though I’ve cut flights and completely changed my itinerary, I’ll still be reviewing Malaysians A330 and 737 as promised.

Qantas A330 Business Class Suite

Qantas A330 Business Class

For this flight, there weren’t any window seats available, so I decided to choose seat 5F, which is in the centre of the aircraft. On this particular flight, the aircraft is fitted with 27 suites which are organised in a 1-2-1 configuration meaning every passenger is given direct aisle access and improved privacy. As I took my seat, the crew came around to introduce themselves, offer a pre-departure beverage, arrival card and ask if anyone would like a demonstration of the suite if they haven’t flown it before.

For those who like to know the registrations of aircraft, the flight was operated by VH-EBJ.

Qantas A330 Business Class

If you haven’t already seen my other Qantas A330 posts, take a look here, here and here.

Qantas A330 Business Class

One thing I do prefer over Virgin Australia’s suites is the storage accessible to you while you’re seated. The side storage compartment is relatively significant for storing things like a laptop, Ipad or camera.

Qantas A330 Business Class

For the pre-departure beverage, there was the option of either water or champagne; I went with the latter. On this flight, the entire cabin in business was completely filled, I guess that’s to be expected when you’re departing on a Friday. Once all of the passengers and cargo were on board, we pushed back and took off only a few minutes behind schedule.

Qantas A330 Business Class

The side storage compartment is also where you’ll find the controls for your seating positions; the do not disturb button, massage function and all of the lighting in the suite.

Qantas A330 Business Class

This is where you’ll also find the in-seat power. The A330’s are equipped with 1x 110v point as well as a standard USB port.

Qantas A330 Business Class

Qantas A330 Business Class Cabin

As well as the pre-departure beverage, the crew also handed out an arrival form for Bali.

Landing Slip For Bali

You’ll also find a bottle of water, an amenity kit, menu and noise-cancelling headphones at your seat.

Noise Cancelling Headphones & Water

Qantas Business Class Amenity Kit

Qantas A330 Business Class Cabin

Onboard Dining

The menu on the flight looked quite appealing, so I was rather keen to see how the food performed. I had a friend also flying to Singapore the same day and happened to send me the menu; the only differences we could find was the prior to arrival snack. I find it interesting that the menu’s don’t make diverse more considering the locations served by the carrier.

Dining Menu

About 45 minutes after we levelled off, the meal service was getting prepared to start. Now I’m not sure about you but is there any other QF regulars who would like to see the bread change? I don’t mind sourdough, but every flight is getting a bit repetitive, I’m sure a selection of 2 or 3 different pieces of bread would be much better received in my opinion. You can’t compete with garlic bread…

Qantas A330 Business Class

Sourdough Bread And Lettuce

As for the drinks I had on board, I went with water and a glass of a new sauvignon blanc which was quite enjoyable (unfortunately I cannot remember the name, sorry!).

Sauvignon Blanc & Water

And how could I not get my favourite drink served on Qantas, the brilliant Bundaberg ginger beer.

Bundaberg Ginger Beer

To start off the meal service, I went with the salad of herbed lemon chicken with chickpea, balsamic onions, broccolini and saffron aioli. I will say, the starter tasted excellent, and the aioli especially accompanied it well.

Starter

As for the main dish, I went with the Jiangxi style Humpty doo barramundi with seasonal greens, sesame seeds and jasmine rice. The barramundi was tasty and had a lot of flavours, but I found the portion size to be a little small.

Main Dish

After these two dishes, I was pretty full and not wanting to eat anymore, so I decided to skip dessert.

One thing I found rather interesting about the cabin is that there is only one lavatory and it’s located right at the front of the cabin, is one really enough?

Qantas A330 Business Lavatory

As usual, the Apsar amenities were stocked on the flight:

Qantas Aspar Amenities

The bathrooms were kept clean throughout the flight, and I found it to be standard in terms of space.

Qantas A330 Business Lavatory

Qantas A330 Business Class Cabin

Seat 5F

Overall

I’ve had some fantastic flights on Qantas, but this sadly wasn’t one of them. While the seat is always going to be the same, some variables change like meals and crew.

One thing I’m noticing more and more is the mixed bag of crew on Qantas. On some flights, I’ve had stellar crew than others like this service, where they really didn’t seem enthusiastic or even engage in conversation.

Have you flown Qantas’ A330 Business Class?