In March 2026, I flew Qantas’ 737 business class from Sydney to Auckland. This was my first-ever trans-Tasman flight, and I was excited to see what was on offer in this market. From what I gather from the route, Qantas and Air New Zealand have a level of collaboration in this market that’s probably higher than average for what otherwise is a duopoly, while still competing fiercely on some of the mainline routes.
So how was my first trans-Tasman flight? I enjoyed it, and particularly enjoyed the food and beverage on this short three-hour flight. The seats on this flight were aging and basic recliners that will be phased out soon, though otherwise I enjoyed some of the perks including solid amenities and free WiFi for all passengers. It’s also worth noting that Qantas also flies A330s and 787s with lie-flat seats on this route, and I only picked this flight because the schedule worked by far the best for me.
Booking Qantas’ 737 Business Class
I booked a one-way business class flight on Qantas using Asia Miles (the Oneworld programme for which I have the most points). This cost 33,000 Asia Miles, and HK$935 (£88.5) in taxes – a bulk of the tax portion came from Australia’s relatively high departure taxes, especially for a flight of this length. Given that an economy redemption would’ve called for the same tax amount, I figured I might as well go for business class, just to see what it’d be like on this route.
The itinerary was as follows:
10/03/26 Qantas 149 Sydney (SYD) – Auckland (AKL) dep. 19:15 arr. 00:25+1 (Business Class)
Qantas Business Class Ground Experience at Sydney Airport
Sydney Airport has a big morning rush, though I found it to be very quiet during the late afternoon, ahead of my evening flight to Auckland. At Sydney Airport’s international terminal, Qantas passengers have access to two lounges – a temporary Qantas international business class lounge (with a renovated one to open in 2027), and the Emirates lounge, with whom Qantas has a joint business partnership. The Emirates lounge is only open certain hours of day (before the Dubai and Christchurch flights in the morning from 2:30 AM to 7 AM, then from 5:45 PM to 9:45 PM before the evening Emirates flight), so I was fortunate for my 7:15 PM departure time to fall within one of these windows.
Neither of the lounges are particularly inspiring, though the Emirates lounge was my preferred one, with good champagne and catering (you’ll want to go to the Qantas lounge for barista coffee, though). The ground experience will get significantly better once Qantas opens its new flagship business class lounge next year, and obviously Oneworld Emerald members (which I’m not) can use Qantas’ spectacular first class lounge.
Unlike domestic flights you have access to the airport’s international lounges on trans-Tasman flights, however with Sydney Airport’s current lounge situation this isn’t particularly attractive (yet)
Anyway, after a glass or two of champagne at the Emirates lounge, I headed over to gate 36, where my flight was departing. Boarding was scheduled for 6:55 PM (20 minutes before departure), and though it became obvious at that time that we wouldn’t be boarding then, since the plane wasn’t actually at the gate.
Qantas Gate Area at Sydney Airport
There was still much to see in the surrounding area, including the stunning Sichuan Airlines A350 pictured below, complete with a panda livery.
Sichuan Airlines A350 at Sydney Airport
Our aircraft had just flown in from Adelaide, and there was a delay in towing it from the domestic terminal (T3) to the international terminal. At 6:50 PM the aircraft was towed, over, and the crew boarded shortly after.
Qantas 737 at Sydney Airport
There were quite a few people standing by the priority entrance – I struck up a conversation with someone headed over to Auckland for business. He was really nice, and once I mentioned I was reviewing the flight, he invited me to go ahead of him – yay!
Boarding was finally called at around 7:10 PM, and I was excited to board my first trans-Tasman flight, as well as my first time in Qantas’ business class!
Qantas Flight QF149
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Origin: Sydney (SYD) T: 1 Gate: 36 Dep: 19:15 (19:30)
Destination: Auckland (AKL) T: I Gate: 3 Arr: 00:25+1 (00:30+1)
Duration: 3 hr 10 min (3 hr)
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800 Reg: VH-VZF
Seat: 3F (Business Class)
Qantas 737 Business Class Cabin and Seat
Qantas’ 737s feature recliner-style business class seats in a 2-2 configuration. There are three rows, so the entire cabin has 12 seats.
Our plane (VH-VZF) was 16.5 years old, and had been owned by Qantas the entire time, only sometimes running for their New Zealand subsidiary Jetconnect. I believe that the only change in the business class cabin over this entire time was a minor reupholstery, though the planes are due to be retrofitted with newer-style recliners in the coming years.
Qantas 737 Business Class Cabin
The seats feature minimal recline. I’ve been in economy seats with more recline, and I don’t think this was unique to the last row. I would’ve expected recline to be more substantial, though this wasn’t a big issue for this three-hour flight (this is a bigger issue for e.g. the redeye Perth-Melbourne flight). However, the seat did feature a fold-up legrest, and a flip-down footrest built into the legrest.
Qantas 737 Business Class Recline
On the plus side, the winged adjustable headrest was sturdy.
Qantas 737 Business Class Headrest
The tray table folded out of the left armrest, and was bi-fold. It was fairly sturdy, considering the aircraft’s age.
Qantas 737 Business Class Tray Table
It’s fairly nice for this shorthaul-configured 16-year-old aircraft to have inflight entertainment screens, and coming in I figured it’d be a downgrade to lose them. Well, after the flight, I’m not as fussed, and actually think streaming entertainment and faster WiFi would be a major upgrade. The screens were a decent 10.6 inches in size and the actual definition wasn’t terrible, though there was lots of visible glare and not much effective contrast. Additionally, the UI was extremely unresponsive, and hard to navigate with both the touchscreen and the remote control within the armrest.
Qantas 737 Business Class Screen
Needless to say that there wasn’t any form of storage here, apart from in the seat pocket. There also wasn’t any meaningful separation between seats, though this wasn’t an issue for me, since I got along well with my seatmate.
So the seat was aging, and they’ll make way for some newer seats with USB-C charging, more in-seat storage, and faster onboard WiFi, as well as removing the aging IFE screens. There are definitely some regions where this seat would’ve been considered below average, though I was perfectly happy with the seat for a three-hour flight.
Qantas 737 Economy Class Cabin
Since I was seated in the last row of business class, I had the chance to peek into the economy class cabin behind. These seats looked quite good, and I was particularly intrigued by the padding, which looked above average for a plane operating regional flights. Expect the PTVs at these seats to be quite low-quality, though.
I believe that since I took this flight, the cabin has been refreshed slightly to make way for some Economy Plus seats (they removed a row of economy seats to make way for eight rows of Economy Plus).
Qantas 737 Economy Class Cabin
Qantas 737 Business Class Amenities
Back at my seat, I found a pair of decent-quality headphones, similar to what you’ll get in business class or premium economy on one of the airline’s longer flights.
Qantas 737 Business Class Headphones
Pillows and blankets were available on request on this flight. I requested a blanket later into the flight, and found the blanket to be very substantial, similar to what you’ll find on many airlines in longhaul business class.
Qantas 737 Business Class Blanket
Qantas 737 Business Class Pre-Departure Service
A few minutes after boarding, we were greeted by a flight attendant and offered pre-departure beverages, including champagne, water, and orange juice. The champagne on offer was Duval-Leroy Brut, which was decent.
Qantas 737 Business Class Champagne
Taking Off from Sydney Airport
At 7:30 PM, 15 minutes after our scheduled departure time, the inflight manager came onto the PA to announce that we’d be taking off imminently. This was followed by a safety video.
At this point I wasn’t minding our delay too much – we were only a few minutes behind schedule, and in fact we were catching a beautiful sunset as some aircraft taxied by, including a Singapore Airlines A350, Air India 787, and Air New Zealand A320neo.
Sunset traffic at Sydney Airport
Sydney Airport is much busier in the mornings, though we still had a lengthy taxi, given that we were taking off from runway 34R (which is all the way on the other side of the airport).
Taxiing at Sydney Airport
We eventually took off just before 7:50 PM, before turning right to head southeast towards Auckland.
Takeoff at Sydney Airport
Qantas 737 Business Class Entertainment System
Before the WiFi was activated (which wasn’t gate-to-gate on this flight), I figured I’d check out the entertainment system. As aforementioned, the responsiveness was terrible, and the screen had a lot of glare.
Qantas 737 Business Class Entertainment System
The actual entertainment system as such wasn’t so bad, and in fact had some good options. There were even some options from their partnership with Paramount+.
Qantas 737 Business Class Entertainment System
The moving map wasn’t interactive and not my preferred layout, though I did like some of the flight stats on the side of the interface.
Qantas 737 Business Class Moving Map
While the options weren’t terrible, I did get the sense that the entertainment system was in dire need of an upgrade.
Qantas 737 Business Class WiFi
In this case I found entertainment system to be a moot point, since Qantas offers free WiFi for all passengers onboard select 737s. Not only that, but you can connect multiple devices – you don’t even have to log in with your seat number, but rather just have to click “Connect” on a pop-up screen.
The WiFi itself wasn’t the speediest, and measured 18.0 Mbps down and 8.75 Mbps up. However, it was definitely a perk to be able to connect multiple devices. The refurbished Qantas 737s will have faster WiFi and streaming entertainment, which I’d be perfectly happy with.
Here’s a catch – not every Qantas 737 features WiFi at the minute, so perhaps don’t plan to have WiFi on your flight just yet (in case it’s not operational on the aircraft operating your flight). That’s slated to change as soon as this year, and if you’re on a Qantas A321XLR, it’ll have WiFi.
Qantas 737 Business Class Meal Service
Soon after we reached cruising altitude, the meal service commenced. The menu card at our seats during boarding read as follows:
Qantas 737 Business Class Menu
The drinks menu on the back of this card read as follows:
Qantas 737 Business Class Drinks Menu
Having two main options was fairly standard, and I wouldn’t say the meal choices were particularly gourmet. However, I was impressed by the drinks selection, and particularly how it highlighted local Australian options (especially with wine and beer). For example, the fact that there were five choices of aperitif felt quite high-effort. If there was one thing I’d have hoped for more of, there wasn’t much in the way of non-alcoholic drinks options, which I’m sure some may appreciate.
I will say that the meal service didn’t commence as quickly as you’d expect in a premium cabin on a 3-hour flight. I didn’t mind this, as I was content getting some work done on the inflight WiFi. However, the meal service only began 55 minutes into the flight, which is a bit later than what I would’ve expected.
The meal service was conducted by trolley, and there were two options – fettuccine with prawns, and Balti chicken curry. I went for the fettuccine with prawns. It wasn’t particularly fancy and could’ve presented better, though I found the flavour to be delicious, and the pasta to be well-executed. The smoked salmon and potato side salad was very tasty as well, and I was also offered bread from the breadbasket (I would’ve wished that this was heated, as it was served cold).
We were also asked whether we wanted still or sparkling water, and I went with sparkling water.
Qantas 737 Business Class Meal – Fettuccine with Prawns, Parmesan Cream Sauce and Parsley Crumbs
The meal was also served with dark chocolate from Koko, which tasted high-quality.
Qantas 737 Business Class Chocolate Bar
We were given a choice of whatever we wanted to drink, and I asked what dessert wines were available. There were two dessert wines available – these were a Lillypilly Estate Noble Harvest dessert wine from New South Wales, and a Campbells Classic Rutherglen Muscat from Rutherglen, Victoria. I asked for a glass of the muscat, and it was tasty.
Qantas 737 Business Class Wines
Around 20 minutes later the crew collected our meal trays, and this was followed by dessert. I was given a chocolate and salted caramel ice cream, which was tasty as well.
Qantas 737 Business Class Ice Cream
As a side note, the economy class options were announced over the PA (guessing they didn’t have menu cards), and there were three options, presumably including a dietary one – while I didn’t catch what they were, I was very impressed by this. Even in Asia sometimes you don’t get a meal choice on flights of this length, and these are full hot meals as well (i.e. not sandwiches).
Landing into Auckland Airport
After the meal service the lights were turned down throughout the cabin, and I napped for an hour or so. Before I knew it, we were descending into Auckland.
There wasn’t much in the way of views at this hour, since it was just after midnight. Instead, we approached Auckland Airport over the Manukau Harbour, and landed onto runway 05R at 12:20 AM, five minutes behind our scheduled arrival time.
Landing into Auckland Airport
We parked at gate 3 next to a Singapore Airlines A350, which had just arrived into Auckland an hour or so prior – while Singapore Airlines’ second flight to Auckland is seasonal, this should probably belong on one of the strangest flight schedules I’ve seen, as it’s an early-morning 8:45 AM flight that lands at 11:35 PM. That’s a full day spent on a plane, with a bed at both ends!
Singapore Airlines A350 at Auckland Airport
Deplaning was quick, and I spotted our Qantas 737 from the arrivals hall, which had just taken me on my first-ever trans-Tasman flight.
Qantas 737 at Auckland Airport
While I’d expected the airport to be deserted, it quickly became clear to me that there was a bank of flight arriving post-midnight. While I understand that this time is fairly popular for shorthaul trans-Tasman flights from Australia, I was more surprised to see flights from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore arriving at this hour. I suppose that Auckland Airport doesn’t have a curfew, so it’s a convenient time for many southeast Asian departures to leave post-midnight, before arriving Asia early in the morning!
While there were queues for customs and biosecurity, these queues moved quickly, and I was through in around 30 minutes.
Auckland Airport Biosecurity Line
From here I walked to the ibis Budget Auckland Airport (there was a paid shuttle bus service, though I figured I’d get as much outdoors time in New Zealand as I could given I was only laying over), where I’d be staying the night.
Conclusion: Qantas’ Trans-Tasman 737 Business Class
This was my first trans-Tasman flight, so I figured I’d tell the story of what it was like and set expectations, as opposed to comparing it to other players in the market. Flying shorthaul within Australia definitely bears more similarities to flying intra-Asia than it does with flying within Europe and the U.S.. This is especially impressive as the trans-Tasman route is arguably a less competitive landscape, as Air New Zealand only operates business class flights when they operate their longhaul aircraft to Australia.
The hard product on my flight was okay, and probably on the weaker end of flights that usually operate the route – it was on the older end of “standard” business class recliners, with outdated PTVs. There’s also something to be said about the current lounge situation at Sydney Airport, which isn’t great for Qantas’ main international hub (obviously that’s due to change next year, which I’m looking forward to). However, the soft product was impressive – the free WiFi was great, there were good amenities, and I also appreciated the thoughtful food selection, with a highlight of Australian wines, multiple aperitifs, and a tasty main course (though some more non-alcoholic options would make the product even better).
I’d recommend seeking out a widebody aircraft on the route, though even if you’re flying one of these standard 737 flights, you’re still bound to have a good time.
