Leg 2 LXR-DOH Qatar Airways - Airbus A320 / Leg 3: DOH-DXB Qatar Airways - Airbus A330-200

After a relaxing couple of days in Luxor it was time to head back to the airport for the return leg. As Air Arabia have a rather limited timetable between Sharjah and Luxor, we had needed an alternative route back to the the UAE, and with limited flights from Luxor only had the option of Qatar Airways via Doha, or Jazeera Airways via Kuwait. With Qatar Airway being both better priced, more direct, and offering a better connection time, there wasn’t really much in the way of a decision to be made.

Check in at Luxor was incredibly quick and easy, although with only the flight to Doha and the aforementioned flight to Kuwait departing from the international section today, the place wasn’t exactly running at full capacity. In less than 15 minutes we were checked in though to Dubai, through security, and sitting in the international departures area. With the exception of the cafe and a single shop selling leather jackets the outlets in the terminal appeared closed, with no indication that they were likely to open ever again never-mind prior to our flight. The hour and a half wait for boarding finally trickled by and we were called to board what turned out to be another packed flight.

In flight service was perfectly adequate for a flight of this length, with a full meal service and drinks run and entertainment on drop down screens (not sure what this was, I noticed it had Eddie Murphy in it and chose to leave my headphones in their wrapper.) On the food front, by the time the catering trolley reached us only the seafood option was available, which I choose to avoid on planes as I have an occasional tendency to not get on with it. The attendant working the trolley said she’d see what she could do and came back with the meal she had set aside for herself as she said she was happy to swap. Given my regular recent experiences of indifferent service in the region on Emirates (with whom I have had Gold status for a few years) this willingness to help was refreshing, and in my recent experience is symptomatic of the service edge Qatar Airways is building over Emirates. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m no Emirates hater and some of my best flight service experiences have been with Emirates, these just seem to be getting fewer and further between. As I’m based in Dubai, it makes little sense for me to ditch Emirates as my primary airline, but if I were someone for whom travel in the Middle East was as a transit passenger I’d seriously be reconsidering my loyalties.

Arrival in Doha was on-time, with a bus transfer to the terminal. Transit queues were dealt with quickly and efficiently, and we were through to the departures area within 20 minutes of touchdown. At present Doha airport lags a bit behind the facilities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi but is nonetheless an easy enough place to transit, particularly if you prefer to avoid the half hour walk sometimes required in Dubai. That said, all my transfers here have been at relatively off-peak times and I can see that both the transfer and general terminal facilities could get overloaded during major flight banks.

Boarding for the flight to Dubai began within 10 minutes of us clearing transit security and we were back in the air less than an hour after arrival. Service on the Doha to Dubai leg, which again was full, was limited to a cup of juice and a warm pannini / snack sandwich type of thing. With a flight time of only 45 minutes this was fine, and the snack was actually quite tasty. The AVOD was turned on for this leg but no headphones were distributed. Arrival in Dubai was quick and easy, late afternoon is a quiet time at airports in the region so we were in a taxi within 30 minutes of arrival. Unfortunately taking the new metro wasn’t an option as neither the Terminal One station nor the one by my apartment is finished, hopefully it shouldn’t be too long before this is sorted.

This concludes the first section of this report, which will how go on hiatus for a couple of days until my trip to Saudi later in the week.