During the publicity circuit for The Chairman’s Lounge, I was often asked, “Who do you fly?” Implicit in this question is the erroneous assumption that I don’t fly Qantas. In fact, I fly them exceedingly often.

I’ve been a Platinum One member of Qantas’ Frequent Flyer program for nine consecutive years (albeit including the three pandemic years when everyone’s status tier was automatically extended).

The qualification for Platinum One is 3600 status points, which equates to 90 “flexible economy” ticket return trips between Melbourne and Sydney each year, or five return flights in first class between Sydney and London. There are actually fewer Platinum One members than there are members of the Chairman’s Lounge, although the cohorts significantly overlap.

But what is it like to fly Qantas after writing The Chairman’s Lounge? Well, the book has rendered me a highly ineffective mystery shopper. On long-haul flights, at least, the cabin crew is clearly pre-briefed about my unholy presence, and at all times maintain a discipline of formation equal to Russia’s synchronised swimming team. Their fussing and fawning plays beautifully to my susceptible ego. It is like being waited on by David Gonski, drowned in a torrent of flattery.

I flew Qantas first class to London twice in the final quarter of 2024. In the past 18 months, I’ve taken the same or comparable trips on British Airways, Emirates, Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways. So how does Qantas compare?

My international Qantas journeys out of Sydney always begin with time spent in the airline’s iconic First Lounge. Designed by Marc Newson and ushered into existence in 2007 by then Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon and his aesthete lieutenant John Borghetti, this lounge rocketed Qantas into a genuine handful of brands globally operating at the cutting edge of industrial design. It (almost) goes without saying that something this special would have never been built by Dixon’s successors.

The First Lounge reminds us of an era when product excellence, alongside safety, formed the double helix of Qantas’ DNA. Of inimitable character, it remains a marvellous asset even today, having survived the lamentable 2022 and 2023 period when budget cuts made it Australia’s only soup kitchen clad in Carrara marble. It now serves a playable pinot noir from Coldstream Hills, but the food is only tolerable at best. I could’ve repurposed my chicken bao bun as a doorstop.

The food onboard, however, is back. Among Vanessa Hudson’s very first moves as Qantas CEO was restoring $50 million to the international catering budget, and it shows. The proteins are Margaret quality – CopperTree Farms beef, Bannockburn chicken, Glacier 51 toothfish – and the portions are generous. Having said that, the thumbnail of caviar Qantas serves on a pikelet before take-off is a little tragic; on Emirates, Qatar and Singapore, they serve it by the tin.

The hallmark of Qantas’ chef Neil Perry – he’s also the owner of Margaret in Sydney’s Double Bay – is letting good produce do the talking. And it’s preferable – in my book – to the over-engineered haute cuisine offered inflight by other carriers. Eye fillet with crisp potatoes and a cherry tomato and hazelnut salsa was one of the better meals I’ve ever eaten in the air. (For a hedonistic hack: reserve an eye fillet for breakfast; steak and eggs coming in over Belgium always makes for a terrific start to day one in London.)

While Qantas once again holds its own with the best in first class catering, the same can’t be said for its meals in business class, where Singapore and Qatar leave it for dead. Qantas management has plainly calculated it can peddle an inferior product in a highly competitive market without consequence, thanks to the heroin-like properties of its frequent flyer program.

Qantas kicked off an upgrade of its A380 interiors in 2019, and completed it only recently. The upper deck lounge has been delightfully transformed and the 787-equivalent business suites and premium economy seats have been installed. But it was a complete fizzer for first class, which merely got new seat cushions and entertainment screens.

It was a wasted opportunity to install suites with privacy – now the industry standard in first class (Delta, Qatar and now Cathay Pacific even have doors on their business class suites on most aircraft types). It was also a wasted opportunity to install inflight Wi-Fi. Qantas will emerge from the aviation Stone Age later this year, when Wi-Fi is installed on its first A380. Delta, Emirates and United Airlines introduced inflight internet in 2014, and Singapore had Wi-Fi on its A380s in 2012.

Singapore’s first class product is beyond question the global market leader, with Emirates the runner-up – its pioneering onboard shower and bottomless Dom Pérignon compensating for the sheer ugliness of the cabin and lounges.

Yet in one important respect Qantas is superior to Singapore: the sleep experience. While it is an obscene luxury to have your own reclining armchair and a separate bed (a layout Qantas will debut on its Project Sunrise A350s in late 2026), it’s more of a sleep counter unsoftened by its communion wafer mattress.

There has also been notable improvement in the breadth of content on Qantas’ inflight entertainment system. There was a time when, thanks to the airline’s savage cost-cutting, “rawdogging” was almost the only option on a long-haul Qantas flight.

A partnership with Paramount+ now gives flyers an array of TV show box sets (unlike Singapore Airlines’ equivalent deal with Apple TV+ which infuriatingly gives you only the first four episodes of each series). I binged Lioness. Five stars!

Qantas’ First Lounge in Singapore – inaugurated mere weeks before COVID hit – falls short of its Sydney sibling’s design immortality, though it’s by no means unattractive. Where it excels, unlike its Sydney sibling, is in the kitchen. Don’t miss the beef rendang with nasi lemak, or the laksa if you’re game, and never trek back to the boarding gate before hoovering a gobful of chef Linda’s prawn wontons.

The ground service is also outstanding. The lounge’s impeccable team of hosts will usher you to the plane at the last possible second, giving you maximum time for a feed, a shower and your 15 hours of banked-up messages and emails. None of these compliments, sadly, can be showered upon Qantas’ Heathrow lounge – a dead-set frightful place.

Possibly the unkindest thing said about British Airways’ first class is that it’s the best business class in the skies (ingloriously, that’s not even true any more, thanks to Qatar’s Qsuites). While Qantas first class doesn’t lead the pack, it deserves no such cruel epitaph.

Sitting onboard QF1 at Sydney Airport in December, before we’d even pushed back from the gate, I was studiously minding my own business when a familiar voice exclaimed: “Well hello, Joe.”

I looked up and Hudson was standing over me. She remained two seats away for the subsequent 22 hours. With the Qantas CEO now personally overseeing quality control on my flights, I’m obviously delighted that my feedback is finally receiving the appropriate level of management buy-in.

Joe Aston is the author of The Chairman’s Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out, published by Simon & Schuster.
The March issue of AFR Magazine – featuring Highflyer magazine – is out on Friday, February 28 inside The Australian Financial Review. Follow AFR Mag on Instagram.