Unveiling the final piece of its longhaul passenger experience puzzle, Qantas is installing Recaro R3 economy seats — formerly the CL3810 — aboard the Airbus A330 aircraft that it intends to retain through the middle of the 2030s.

Qantas international chief executive officer Cam Wallace explains that “they’re the same seats that will feature on our ultra long haul A350-1000ULR aircraft, so it will be a preview of the Project Sunrise flying experience.” Wallace does, of course, gloss over the differences in seat width between the A330 and the A350, making this perhaps the Project Astronomical Dawn in advance of Project Sunrise.

Qantas will start the refurb work next year at its in-house maintenance facilities in Brisbane, and expects the first refitted aircraft to be in service by the end of calendar 2025. It then hopes that the entire refurbished fleet will be back in service by the end of 2026, but this will of course be dependent on the creaking aircraft interiors supply chain. 

While Recaro’s economy class seat lines have not seen the delays that its business class seats have, the final assembly line for seats — which must then be shipped across the world from southwestern Germany to Brisbane — is dependent on critical paths elsewhere in the supply chain, including inflight entertainment systems, as Runway Girl Network discussed extensively at the seatmaker’s Schwäbisch Hall headquarters last spring, and later at its Americas facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

On to the seats. While Qantas says that the set of rendering images is “indicative”, they certainly seem to indicate pleasing passenger experience (PaxEx) upgrades. Those new 13.3” OLED screens (which Qantas says are a full 20 percent larger than their predecessors) feel massive in the R3, which look to be pitched reasonably.

From the images, your author would hazard a guess that these are to match the 31” of the previous Qantas A330 fleet. If so, that will of course feel more spacious than the previous generation for passengers thanks to the improved shin-level space engineered for passengers by shifting the horizontal structures of the seat forward. 

But it will be notable to see whether Qantas decides on a one-for-one replacement for the older seats (or, if shifting around monuments, something nearly akin to one-for-one) or whether the airline reduces pitch as a result of the new seats.

Back to the seatbacks, which also feature the very useful flip-down tray-ledges that were originally designed for personal electronic devices, but which your author often observes being used as a sort of empty-your-pockets catchall by passengers. Qantas was an early adopter of these useful tray-ledges in its Boeing 787 economy cabins.

This refurbishment will bring the economy class passenger experience onboard Qantas’ Airbus A330s up to the standard of its 787s and recently refurbished A380s. With the A330s flying on several flagship routes — including to Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo — this consistency will be smart, especially as the airline starts to take the first tranches of its next generation of widebodies, “Project Fysh” from 2027 through to the mid-2030s. 

Qantas plans for the first of its Project Fysh Dreamliners (a mix of four 787-9 and eight stretched 787-10) to start arriving in 2027, and as they arrive the non-refurbished A330s will likely begin to exit the fleet, barring some sort of strategic pivot. According to the Airfleets database, Qantas’ 27-strong A330 fleet ranges from 22 to 12 years old, and the airline has previously cited 21 years as “in line with the Group’s typical replacement profile”.

“The A330 aircraft being upgraded are scheduled to leave the Qantas fleet towards the end of the replacement program,” Qantas says, leaving itself some useful flexibility to adapt to shifting demands.

The airline also notes that it has “started its international Wi-Fi roll out across the A330 fleet. Fast and free Wi-Fi is expected to be available for Qantas flights some routes in Asia on the Wi-Fi enabled A330 aircraft from December this year. Passengers on activated aircraft can already connect to W-Fi while flying over Australia to destinations such as Hong Kong, Delhi and Bengaluru.”

This is, thus, presumably more of a satellite service agreement rollout than an onboard hardware installation rollout.

Indeed, promises Qantas, “the service will offer enough bandwidth for every passenger to enjoy a fast and consistent connection, similar to Qantas Domestic flights where the speed and reliability of inflight Wi-Fi has driven average take-up rates of 75 per cent, with some routes showing up to 100 per cent uptake.”

Related Articles:

• Qantas’ SYD-JNB with A380: the shape of superjumbos to come?
• Recaro Aircraft Seating CEO flags continued shortage in IFE parts
• Qantas takes consistent approach to PaxEx with A321XLR reveal
• Qantas’ new A220 cabins suggest shift in Australian regional flying
• Qantas’ refurbished A380 first class polishes the halo product

All images credited to Qantas