I only heard of all of this today because one of my friends sent me the link. Really shocked that anybody would be defending Qatar on this one. I mean, even if you think they are the morally superior party, it just seems incredibly stupid. Horrible PR. They don't gain anything from it. It just seems like everything was poorly handled. If they just ignored this from the beginning, it would be over. And by banning someone for criticising them just gives such a bad look. Do they legally have the right to? Sure. But it hardly screams hospitality.

Now, it becomes impossible to trust any positive review of QR since any reviewer now knows that a bad review can result in a ban from the airline, while a good review could apparently result in freebies.

And this is all ignoring the crew being sacked since everybody already knows that they are only one of many airlines that treat the employees like sub-humans and nobody has ever actually cared.

But yeah, regardless of whatever has happened behind the scenes, just seems like a massive own goal from QR.