Qatar Airways – QR276 – April 6th 2017
Amsterdam Schiphol AMS – 22.35
Doha Hamad Intl DOH – 05.50 (+1)
Boeing 777-300 – A7-BAS – Business class, seat 02F, center section, aisle.
Since I was the first boarding the aircraft, the purser saw me taking pictures of the cabin and we discussed for a couple minutes. The business class cabin is arranged in an old fashioned 2-2-2 configuration.
My FA for this evening flight then came to me to offer me a welcome drink of my choice (champagne and a glass of water) and an oshibori. She also presented me the beverage and meals menus, and greeted me by name. The glass of water arrived a couple minutes later and the glass of Billecart-Salmon 15 min later.
It gave me enough time to familiarize with my seat, which was clearly not from the last generation. The Bric’s amenity kits were already on the seat, such as the pillow and the blanket. The amenity kit contained the usual stuff : Earplugs in a small plastic case, a hood, a pair of socks, lip balm, a hand and face moisturizer. Tooth brushes, toothpaste, razors and cream were available in the lavatories.
Most of the storage compartments of the seat are available at the feet. Only a small pocket next to seat allow you to store a mobile phone and the provided noise-cancelling head set. A USB port and the jack socket are available in this area. The real power plug is available at the front of the seat. I personally liked the fact a small storage area for a water bottle was available in the armrest, in front of the remote control for the IFE. The seat controls are located on the other arm rest and features the usual positions for takeoff, lounge, and bed, and also has a powerful massage function.
Boarding was completed around 22:20, and the purser went to different passengers throughout the cabin to introduce his self and inform about the flight time.
The safety demonstration, featuring the FC Barcelona players was showed and suddently stopped in the middle. At this point, the purser made an announcement to start the manual safety demonstration. The Panasonic IFE took 15 min to restart.
We took off around 23:00 and the FA came afterwards to take my drinks and food order, both for the dinner and for the breakfast. I opted for a glass of Piper Rosé with the Quinoa and lentil salad, with Feta and Chicken for dinner and the pancakes for breakfast. I asked the FA to wake me up an hour before landing for breakfast.
10 min later, my glass of Piper Rosé arrived with some warm nuts and about 30 min later, my table was dressed and dinner served.
The salad was overall quite good and a selection of 3 breads, with butter, salt and pepper was provided. Service was done without trolley, and proactive Champagne top-up was offered but I declined. I personally liked the way the table was dressed, this is done only in First class on most of the airlines I used.
Concerning the IFE, while there is a large selection of programs available, I was a bit disappointed by the responsiveness of the system. The few shows I watched were sometime lagging. This was a general issue across the cabin. It is worth noting that the screens don’t have anti side vision coating. Which means that you can see what the other passengers are watching and it generates quite some light during night flights. The noise cancelling headphones provided are of good quality. Note that there was no WiFi available onboard this aircraft.
But since this was a night flight, I did not mind and it was time to me to get a few hours of sleep.
And I actually did not sleep much, and did not sleep well… First I found the head rest very improperly positionned (I am 1m88 tall). Secondly, the pillow and the blanket were not comfortable at all. I did find the pillow useless and the blanket way too short and too thin by my standards… (Ah if only all the airlines could use the same duvet and pillow as LATAM in business class…) Thirdly, there was always some noise coming from the aisle, I guess the crew was walking quite loudly. I almost prefer the BA club world seat…
90 minutes before landing, the FA woke me up for breakfast and to dress the table. The pancake was fine, as good as you can expect when being served on an aircraft after just barely 2 hours of sleep. I also ordered Sencha green tea, orange juice and their signature cucumber, mint and apple energizer drink, the latter being a good surprise. The breakfast was served with a croissant, some bread and a muffin, of average taste.
Shortly before landing the connecting flight information was displayed on the screen
To conclude, I would rate this flight as following :
Cabin Crew : B
Seat : C+ (Maybe that’s the seat I choose – It was initially 3K but switched to 2F. WE also experienced quite some issues with the IFE)
On time performance : B
Meal and beverages : B+ (Food was good, table set up was elegant)
Overall experience : B