UKC

Interested in anyone's experiences of flying to Australia...

Hopefully I may have a good opportunity for a trip there next May. I've had a quick look at flights and can see there are lots of airlines such as BA, Cathay Pacific, Etihad etc......all seem to have one stop.

Any views or experiences of who to fly with...thanks.

In reply to abr1966:

The furthest you can currently get non-stop is Heathrow to Perth with Qantas. 

In reply to abr1966:

You need to work out how much your time is worth. Expensive airlines usually have good connections. I flew to NZ with NZ air, everything went well and it took around 25 hrs Heathrow to Auckland and cost almost £1300.

I could have flown South China air and saved almost £500 but it would have added a 17 hour stopover in guangzhou and apparently very dubious food. Too short to get out of the airport and do anything proper but long enough to be annoying.

If you are going for a really long time and travelling with friends then maybe take a punt on the cheap airline and entertain yourselves on the stopover. If you only have a few weeks then you don't really want to spend 2 days travelling in each direction.

In reply to abr1966:

My first choice, Qatar Airways

Second, Cathay Pacific

I've flown a lot long distance on both airlines. If I was doing the trip, I would choose the cheaper of those two, my opinion only

Happy travels

In reply to Pedro50:

I flew to Auckland with Emirates. Shortish stopovers (2 hours?) At Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney. 

On the return at Dubai we had to change planes in a short space of time and my hold luggage failed to make it but it caught up in London pretty quickly. 

In reply to abr1966: having flown long haul quiet a few times my take is that the few hundred quid saved going on cheap airlines really isn’t worth it . Poor flood , long / weird connections , long journey times . I’ve flown to aus several times  have had good experiences on quantas and Singapore airlines but for my two pence worth emirates win out . Not the cheapest but you can usually  fly to Dubai from lots of regional airports usually for no more money than flying from London. I’ve flown from Newcastle and Manchester to Brisbane and Sydney . Dubai airport is swish and I prefer two or three hours break between the two legs . Have a shower , change clothes , do several laps of the airport  . If you can book both legs on the A380 s ( if you book direct with emirates you can see which plane each leg will be on . If you have more than four hours get a room at the on terminal . Sounds strange after sitting around 10 hours but a shower and a lie down flat  on a bed I’d often just the things  . Finslly I’ve only flown business class at other peoples expense , but ii I was loaded I wouldn’t hesitate to pay for it  . 

In reply to abr1966:

Seconding all the comments about cheaping out on airlines and stopovers. I used to fly Cathay or BA between UK and HK regularly and never had any problems. One time I took an Aeroflot via Moscow, it turned into the travel equivalent of an epic. I still have no idea who the other person in the room was where I slept, but I was too tired to care.

In reply to abr1966:

this was 8 years ago but we flew out with Emirates via Dubai to Sydney and back via Abu Dhabi with Etihad from Perth. I think on the flight back we managed to book a seat "pair" towards the back of the plane, rather than sharing a 3 with someone. Both were nice, I would definitely recommend either.

I second what someone said about the direct flight to Perth - I'd be interested to try that if I was going back to Oz, get it all over with in one big go then have a relatively shorter national flight if I was going over to the East coast.

PS - strongly recommend going to Fiji and or NZ if you can while you're down there!

Edit - in terms of jetlag, we had it quite bad on the way out but on the way back we tried to get onto "London time" from the moment we got on the plane. I think this meant going straight to sleep when we boarded or something like that. On the way out the novelty of being given a three course meal and unlimited alcohol won out, but I would err away from that in future and just aim to get onto destination time ASAP.

In reply to abr1966:

If you have some flexibility on dates play around, you can easily save a few hundred £ or get shorter layovers by being flexible over which day you travel.

Totally agree about being worth paying more for a premium airline. More spacious seats and free refreshments are well worth paying for longhaul.

In reply to abr1966:

Another option is to go with a quality airline but have a long stopover. My parents-in-law swear by this having tried lots of different schedules as they reckon the jet lag is not as bad. They fly Singapore Airlines via Singapore and get a hotel room/use the airport pool. Depends how long you’re going for I guess and maybe the hotel room cancels out the cheaper ticket?

In reply to abr1966:

I fly to Australia more or less annually ... Qantas/Emirates would be my first choice. Just flew this summer on Qatar and it was not great. All flights were delayed by at least an hour, food was very average and took an age to be served. This was in economy.

In reply to abr1966:

Went there in 2014 - flew on an A380 to Sydney via Kuala Lumpur with wife and 8-month old daughter. Home from Adelaide via KL.

Missed connection in KL outbound, but didn't have to wait long for next one. The miss did cause us some issues coming home due to a computer error, but managed to sort that out.

In reply to abr1966:

When I went a few years ago I used Trailfinders who managed to find flights with BA for much the same as other providers. Definitely worth at least getting a quote. Both ways I had a stop in Singapore for a few hours. I've also used Qantas and Cathay which were good too. 

Always intrigued seeing stories of people getting nailed by jetlag. I don't (can't!) sleep much on planes and have never really suffered from it, but am very conscious of not sleeping when I shouldn't after I land. eg. I landed back in London at 5am completely knackered, drank a load of coffee, made it to 9pm and then slept for 12 hours; sorted. 

In reply to abr1966:

Generally I prefer the airlines that stop in Asia rather than the Middle East, though that's probably me preferring asian food.

Some of the stopover airports have small rooms available to rent in 6 hour blocks between flights. Years ago Bangkok airport had massage shops, which seemed to make the jet lag feel a little better (placebo perhaps - but if it works, it's worth it).

You might want to look into paid lounge access at the stopover airport.

Another thing to consider is arrival time in Australia.  There are a lot of flights that arrive in the early morning, and since you'll want to stay awake until the evening to get in sync with the timezone, there's a horrible time from 2pm-5pm where your jetlagged brain is begging you for 'just a short nap'.  Giving in makes things worse, so I've always preferred arriving in the late afternoon/evening.

In reply to profitofdoom:

I'll second Qatar, they're by far the best economy ticket I've flown with (although it was on the a380 which has a lot more room). I also preferred the airport, seemed a lot quieter and easier to get around. Abu Dhabi and Dubai were very busy when I went which wasn't enjoyable...

I would also recommend getting some prescribed sleeping tablets, it made the 17hr flight a lot more comfortable being 6ft5.

In reply to turtlespit:

Very much concur with arriving late in the day. The one time I landed in the morning the day did not go well. Land late, airport or nearby hotel, drinks while soaking up quietness of room, wake in morning jetlag sorted.

In reply to abr1966:

Partly depends on trip duration. The shorter the total trip, the less time you want to spend travelling each way. If it's a two week trip, pay a bit more for the shortest total flight duration. You could fly to Perth, but when you get there, you are in Perth....  

The long haul budget airlines have methods to reduce cost - don't expect even basic economy equivalent from e.g South China. It will be fine in as much as you will get there. It will probably not be fun.

Not flying out of London is cheaper (and can be less busy). Looks like MCR will be a reasonable choice for you. 

3-4 hr layovers are about right currently - depending on where you are transiting. Unless going in the pointy end, any less than that via the US is pretty risky. Look on Google Flights and then book via a travel agent, as that means they have to sort out flights for you in the event of misses/cancellations etc, and they are usually pretty competitive especially if you go in with a flight already researched. 

Also - travel insurance.

Have a great trip. It's a heck of a country, the West Island of New Zealand. 

b

In reply to abr1966:

I visited Australia in October / November 2018 so maybe things have changed since then, but we flew Cathay Pacific economy and thought the experience was pretty fine. It was only my second long-haul trip, so didn't really have much to compare it to, but they gave decent food and had a good selection of films.

We had quite a long layover in Hong Kong each way, but (at least at that time, this may have changed now) we could leave the airport between the flights, which we thought was great. We got to tourist around the city in a quite let-lagged state: I'd not been to Asia before, so it was really interesting, and quite a change to the "climbing dirtbag" holiday we had in Australia itself! We were out for 2 months so the extra travel time wasn't an issue at all, but if you're there for a shorter time then I'd agree with everyone else and try to find somewhere with short layovers.