Which airline to choose..?

For those of us with OneWorld alliance frequent flyer accounts, there are pretty much two options for flying between Australia and Europe - Qantas and British Airways. Just to tangle the issue up a little bit, they both codeshare pretty extensively on each other's flights - so it turns out that my current trip, on a Qantas ticket, actually resulted in a flight on a BA plane from Sydney to London (via Bangkok, for what it's worth). Having spent a lot of time on the Qantas 747s but doing this for the first time on BA hardware, I thought I'd make a few comparisons for the benefit of the travelling public, as follows... Note that I'm mainly comparing economy class with economy class here, I've sat in QF business and premium economy classes a few times, but only walked through those bits of the BA plane on the way in and out, so comments in that area are a bit sketchy.

The planes
This one is a slight win to BA - both airlines are flying slightly ageing 747-400s, so while the interiors seem to have been refitted not too many years ago, they're all getting a bit worn around the edges. QF have started using some A380s as well, but I'm sticking with comparing like-with-like. For some reason, the BA plane I was on seemed to have really quiet engines compared to most 747s, which was nice - this may be due to details of the cabin fit-out or even just the seats I had, I don't know, but it was a pleasant surprise.

The seats
I'll declare this one a tie. I don't have any hard facts regarding seat dimensions, spacings or recline angles, but it seems to me that the BA seats are slightly smaller and narrower. However, to make up for this, they are significantly softer and more cushiony, and recline better. The QF in-seat headrests are better - they fold forwards from the sides rather than downwards from the top, which means that they're easier to position properly, whereas the BA fold-down ones are a bit too narrow to fit my head in between the two sides while wearing headphones. However, the advantage of the fold-down BA ones is that some of the Qantas ones are starting to get a bit old and so don't stay in place when they're folded out, which is a bit annoying.

The entertainment
Clear win for QF on this one. Both airlines have AV on-demand systems with movies, TV shows and CDs, and both seem to be plagued by computer problems which mean that the system has to be rebooted every so often when the whole thing hangs. Qantas wins on the basis of having bigger screens, a cleverer menu system to find things in, a better printed guide to help decide what to watch. BA has a better system to plug in your own headset (a standard earphones jack, not the two-pin version on QF which needs an adaptor), but I have the adaptor anyway, so it's not a real drama. On the TV-on-demand section, QF has several episodes of each show available, whereas BA just has one of each.

The food
Another Qantas win. BA does a better breakfast, actually, but their dinners are appalling - almost as bad as American Airlines long-haul international flights, which is really saying something. I had a chicken-and-mashed-potatoes dish which was basically uniformly grey and soggy on the first bit of the flight, and a noodles-with-unidentifiable-slop on the second half. QF also has better desserts, including the occasional icecream, and their overnight snack-bag packages are a big help on the very long sectors.

The crews
They do all do their jobs efficiently and in a friendly way - and while I've always been particularly impressed with the QF crews being helpful when I've needed something on the flight or when I've fallen sick mid-flight, I can't complain about the BA efforts on this flight either. So, no award in this category.

What about up the pointy end?
As I said, I only got to wander through the BA business and premium economy cabons, but their premium economy seats don't look all that impressive (they were basically the first airline to have premium economy, but I think the others have overtaken them now). BA business class also has half the seats facing backwards, which I would find to be an absolute disaster for motion-sickness reasons. So, my vote would go with QF if I happened to have enough money to move out of cattle class... which isn't going to happen any time soon, unfortunately.

The verdict
BA do a fairly effective job, and they do have nice seats - but my vote is sticking with Qantas on the basis of what I've seen up to this point, and the increasing use of the new A380s will probably only serve to enhance this, I think.