Economy service in Business class seats

[9V-SWT]

I was recently (15 Jan) travelling Y on SQ277 (SIN - ADL).
Only when I was invited to turn left at the entrance did I realise that the (old) business class seats for the flight appeared to be filled by Y passengers too, with Y service.
I would like to hear from fellow members' experience the circumstances under which the airline makes such a decision. Of course, being an overnight flight, I wasn't about to complain of being able to have a good sleep before reaching ADL!

[MAN Flyer]

Yep, they did the same for SQ248 I was booked on from BNE a few days ago. That was also a 777 and had just two rows of J, my seat was '1A'. Looking at the seatmap it showed the rest of the cabin was for YCL.

As it goes I got to BNE about 45 mins before SQ236 was due to leave and I jumped on that instead so I didn't fly on the 777. I don't even attempt to keep track of what 777's have been refurbed, unlike some , but for the record the 777 they sent in to BNE was 9V-SQF.

[wlgspotter]

I had only one prior experience where JCL was made into a YCL. That was many many years ago, on 18th Sept 2011 - yes that long ago and a week after the Sept 11 atacks in the US. I was flying SQ298 CHC-SIN on YCL, the aircraft was SQ's A343 (remember them...?), and I was seated at row 14 or 15 - i remembered it was the first row of the "2nd cabin" of JCL. Apparently that whole section of JCL was converted to YCL. Service was YCL, but I was still pretty good SQ service. However, shortly after the flight took off, when the crew tried to turn on the Krisworld PTV on that section of the cabin, but all the PTV's woldn't come on. Therefore everyone in that cabin didn't have any entertainment for the 10 hour flight (there were no such things as iPads then), although we are all given free inflight shopping vouchers as compensation.

It didn't really bother us, after all, hey we thought that at least we got to travel in a JCL seat for a YCL ticket!

[SQueeze]

Are they still using old 'unrefurbished' 777s down under?
This is new to me, I thought they are all either 330s or the refurbished ones.

[sqdazz]

Gosh its almost as bad as Thai using old 744 configuration to Sydney now

[MLflyer]

Are they still using old 'unrefurbished' 777s down under?
This is new to me, I thought they are all either 330s or the refurbished ones.

I'm guessing the OP was flying on one of those extra seasonal services using 772? Used on routes to ADL, BNE & PER.

MEL & SYD(?) all get the refurbished product, MEL gets 77W & 773

[SQ228]

I'm guessing the OP was flying on one of those extra seasonal services using 772? Used on routes to ADL, BNE & PER.

MEL & SYD(?) all get the refurbished product, MEL gets 77W & 773

Officially, according to the timetable, MEL gets 77W or refurbed 773. At least once a fortnight though, if you check flight databases online, MEL gets an unrefurbed 773 or sometimes 772.

MEL gets a lot of substitutions if they need the aircraft elsewhere. Can happen in the good way too, where the 773 gets upgraded to a 77W or 388. Doesn't matter how it averages out though, if you paid the same as everyone else that week and it's your flight that cops the old plane.

I'm guessing these extra services with 772s were primarily aimed at the growing market of tourists heading overseas on the strength of our dollar, so offering business class seats wasn't their priority on those flights. If they knew they were running old planes they probably were hoping that they wouldn't get too many F bookings

[StarG]

Gosh its almost as bad as Thai using old 744 configuration to Sydney now

I don't see it all that bad. J pax get to sit in old F which is quite comfortable. Y pax get J seat which is a real treat!