Trip Report: Qatar Airways, Abu Dhabi to Lahore
comment below and let me know your thoughts :)
In
the past five years I had flown almost every major Gulf airline, but there was
one airline which I had flown a long time ago and wanted to revisit Qatar
Airways. It had been almost one decade
since I had flown with Qatar, and the last flight was long-haul from Washington
to South Asia. At this time, my
experience on board was not good and the airport was extremely small. Qatar has invested a lot in both its airport
and airline, so I wanted to try Qatar Airways again to see what improvements
had been made.
Instead
of long-haul, this time my flight on Qatar would be two short-haul
flights. The first flight from Abu Dhabi
to Doha was scheduled to take one hour, while the second flight from Doha to
South Asia was scheduled to take 3.5 hours. Qatar had been promoting a Doha
stopover, and even offered free transit visas if your itinerary qualified. For this reason, I decided to take the
morning flight out of Abu Dhabi and the evening flight out of Doha thus giving
me 8-hours in Doha to look around. Booking
the itinerary through the website was very convenient, and I while booking was
able to add FF numbers, select seats, and request special meals. Even after booking it was very easy to manage
the booking either through the website or through the app.
Trying
to access the free transit visa, on the other hand, was not very easy. Once you have booked your itinerary, you
submit your information online and it tells you whether the free visa has been
granted. The problem is that there is no
one who can answer any questions about which itinerary qualifies, and if you
are rejected why the rejection took place.
There is an email associated with the visa page, but numerous emails to
them went unrealized (still waiting for a reply 1.5months later). I tried calling Qatar Airways reservation and
talking to the onboard airline crew, both of whom provided incorrect
information. Also, no one at the airport
has any answers because they all say that everything regarding the free transit
visa is online. Other friends and family
that have taken Qatar Airways long-haul and had a problem say that the ground
staff in Doha and the reservation staff on the phone are not helpful nor
customer friendly; I experienced the same.
My
first flight was scheduled to take off from Abu Dhabi at 11:30am, and after an
hour flight time was scheduled to land in Doha at 11:40am. I was able to check into my flight 24hours
prior, and this could be done on the website or through the app. The boarding pass could either be downloaded,
emailed, or saved to your phone as mobile boarding pass. The app was very convenient as it stored
boarding passes, gate information, seat numbers, and even baggage tags
associated with the reservation. We got
to the airport about 2.5hours prior to departure and it seems that the checkin
staff were just getting started. There
were two agents open, but they were extremely slow and it took a long
time. Even though we were flying economy,
there was no one in the Business class checkin line so we went there to checkin
our bags and receive our boarding pass.
Bags checked and boarding passes received we proceeded to the gate.
The
boarding pass stated boarding was scheduled to start at 10:30am so around that
time we proceeded to the gate. When we
got to the gate, the inbound aircraft had not arrived yet (the inbound is
scheduled to arrive into Abu Dhabi at 10:30a, giving them one hour to turn the
plane around). The plane arrived,
passengers deplaned, and then it took the ground staff a while to get the plane
ready for outbound flight.
The
operating aircraft was an Airbus A320 in a 3-3 layout. The plane looked very new and had updated
seats. The seat comfort was decent, the
leg pitch also good, but the seat width was narrow. Another issue with the seat was the location
of the box for the in flight system – the box was located underneath the seat
but took up a lot of space and thus cut into the legroom. The seat came with a lot of amenities
including an adjustable headrest, an adjustable shell seat, PTV screens behind
every seat, USB ports, headphone jacks, a power socket below and a tray table
above. There was also a main pocket
which contained the airline magazine, duty free magazine, sickness bag and
safety card. The main pocket was not
that big and was pretty stuffed with all the materials, so it was difficult to
take out the various contents. There was
also a smaller pocket available to hold items such as phone and glasses –this
was a nice concept and something I have not seen on other planes. The plane was generally full and even though
we boarded mostly on time, we had a delayed pushback. For both of my flights with Qatar, there was
a rush to board the plane but then no rush to close the door and pushback; each
time we spent a lot of time sitting at the gate waiting for the plane to close
its doors and pushback. The PTV system
was on as soon as you boarded, so most passengers did not notice the
delay. As soon as the doors closed,
refreshing wipes were distributed and the safety video shown.
Given
the short duration of the flight, I did not expect must in flight service but
as soon as we reached cruising altitude the attendants came by to offer a snack
and a drink. The hot snack was a box
with a baked puff dough snack filled with either chicken or veggies, a muffin,
and water. Orange juice was also
provided along with this service. Even
though it was a short flight, the attendants completed handing out the snack
quickly – and then they disappeared. I
had experienced this the last time I flew with Qatar; the attendants only
appear in the aisle if there is a service otherwise you never see a flight
attendant. Same thing for the rest of
the flight; after the garbage was collected the flight attendants were not seen
again. We landed in Doha, taxied to the
gate, and then deplaned. I was told to
go through transfers to get my transfer visa, but that turned out to be
incorrect as I had to go through the regular process in arrivals. It was extremely chaotic and inefficient
process of going through immigration and customs in Doha.
My
next flight departed Doha at 8:30p, with a boarding time at 7:30p. After
touring Doha, we arrived at the airport around 6:30p to allow some time to look
around the airport. Overall, the airport
has more shopping and fewer food options than one would normally think; also
all the food options are concentrated in the middle with few to none located near
the gates. The boarding gate did not
open until 7:30p, and that is when boarding passes were checked and we were told to wait in the secure area.
The aircraft was already there and boarding started around 8p.
The
operating aircraft was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, but a small one. There were three sections of plane, one
business class, one standard economy section and then another small economy
section. The seats were laid out in a
3-3-3 fashion and both the seat comfort and width were similar to the earlier
plane. The pitch was a bit tighter on
this plane as compared to the Airbus.
The passenger load was extremely light, almost everyone in the first
section had three seats to themselves.
As the load was light, we had boarded before time but again we sat at
the boarding gate. Due to paperwork, we
sat in the plane at the gate until almost 9p – almost 30 minutes after the
scheduled departure time. While at the
gate, the attendants distributed refreshing towels, water, headphones, and
showed the safety video.
The flight
time was 3hr 30min and after takeoff the in flight service started which
consisted of dinner. Usually special
meals are delivered first but for this flight no special meals were
delivered. I had ordered a special meal
but when I told that to the attendant they didn’t seem to know what I was
talking about. I had ordered a veggie
option and the choice for dinner was either chicken or lamb, but they did have
some veggie options available. Had it
been a full flight, I am not sure all veggie options would have been
sufficient. The food quantity was small
and the quality was average. Drinks were
served with the meal, and then tea and coffee were served when the trays were
being cleared. After that, again the attendants disappeared for the rest of the
flight. If you needed something, you had
to go back to the alley. Many times
people had pushed the call button but no attendant ever came. We had pushed it many times to request a
blanket – each seat came with a pillow but no blanket – but no one responded to
the call. It was only during the clearing
of the meal trays that we finally got our blanket; almost twenty minutes later. Even when I went to the back to get
something, the attendants acted as if they were being disturbed and that no one
should come back there.
To pass
away the time, you could either read the airline magazine or watch the
entertainment system. The system itself
was average – there were new Hollywood movies but a poor and limited selection
of other movies. The TV selection was
equally as poor and limited all around – it was an extremely light selection
and the selection was the same for both flights.
Overall, it
was a disappointing flight with Qatar. I
expected, after 10 years, to see some change in the onboard product but after
ten years they were still offering the same thing. Below average service, average on board
product, and average seat comfort. They
say you get what you pay for, and Qatar.so ticket prices are usually cheaper
versus the other Gulf airlines; so you pay less and you get less. For me, I would rather pay a bit more to get
a bit more.
Doha International is a brand new purposely built terminal and I have been there before and the same issues I had then continued; there is only one food court for all the passengers, the food and drink selections are severely limited, the food and drink are nowhere near where the gates are, the service is extremely poor, and the prices are ridiculously high. 
My return flights were both on Airbus A350-1000 and I had the same experience. Qatar has a nice hard product - they have new planes with nice amenities but its the extras that Qatar lacking. Qatar has all the ingredients to make a good airline, but none of it comes together to make it cohesive or work. The planes are nice and have all the amenities, but the onboard service is poor and the food quality is terrible. In Doha (and in my experience in many other stations as well) the ground staff barely want to do their job and have horrible customer service (and it has been that way for a couple of years now). My fellow traveling partner opted for the upgrade from Houston to Doha and said that the only good thing about Qatar Business Class was the lie-flat bed, the pajamas, the slippers and the amenity kit. The food in business class was not good at all and the size of the individual pods was very tight and narrow and made the entire experience cramped and uncomfortable. We flew Turkish business class earlier in the year (check out the review here) and when comparing the two, both have issues with their ground staff but Turkish has been quality food, their hard product may not be as up to date but its better in terms of quality, their staff has better customer service, and their pricing is more competitive. As I said, it had been a while since I had flown with Qatar long-haul and my previous experience was not good so that is why we had avoided them but I wanted to try them again to see if anything had changed; in my opinion, nothing has changed and Qatar's product does not seem worth the time nor money I would spend on their product.
