Very poor seating. Review on Qantas Airways

Awful. I will avoid flying with Qantas after my first experience with them from Heathrow to Singapore. About the only thing good about my experience was the in-flight entertainment.

The Qantas A380-800 flight had a great choice of movies and music. Other than that, I had a terrible time trying to sleep and get comfortable. The seats are just far too small. I'm not a big person, but slightly taller than average. I'm only 13 stone and 6ft2inches tall. Legroom is ok if you're prepared to keep your legs under the seat in front of you and one thing I quite like is the elimination of those clunky foot rests. But the seats are just far too narrow and the pitch is too short, particularly if the person in front reclines their seat. Before I boarded, I had read the seats were designed by some famous designer and were supposed to be state of the art. What a load of rubbish. The seats are awful. Plain and simple.

They've eliminated everything on the seats including any ruggedness and functionality. You can feel every little tap from the person behind pressing on the touch screen and kicking the seat with their knees. And for some reason, the seats seem to amplify the vibrations so it's near impossible to rest if you're a person like me that can't stand sudden jolts of movement. The seat width is too small. Not the smallest I've seen, but then again, seats that I have experienced that are narrower have been on very short haul flights. I didn't expect that from a long haul, especially after an excruciating 13 hour flight. And to make matters worse (some industrial designer needs to get sacked for this one), the earphone socket points towards your leg so when you plug in the earphones, you have even less room and often jolt the plug out when you move. The arm rests only fold back three quarters of the way and mine refused to stay up. Dreadful and inhumanely uncomfortable seating aside, the food served was also not great. The first meal had chicken which tasted as if it had been soaked in detergent and the trays are just too small. Cutlery is plastic, cheap and nasty.

There is nowhere to put your cups (most other airlines I've flown with have cup holders on the seats so you can put the tray table away).

I wish I could find something good to say about the seating, but I can't - honestly. The service from the cabin crew was ok though and they did their best to ensure everyone was as comfortable as possible - they probably know how bad the seating is. In comparison to other long-haul flights I've had with British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, Qantas is definitely (by far) the worst out of the bunch. I certainly will not be flying with them again.