After 89 OneWorld flights, apart from two Sri Lankan exclusively with BA and 95% in Economy (I don’t count CE as business), I decided to make the most of my Silver status and use Qatar for a short trip to Myanmar. My itinerary is LGW-DOH-RGN-DOH-LHR, all in their Economy cabin. Having read the numerous posts about how poor BA is compared to most of its partners I was excited, but I’m currently halfway through the trip overlooking the lovely Swedagon Pagoda with a cocktail, but wishing instead my return flight home was on BA...

I know a lot of my poor experiences weren’t Qatar’s fault but it started at Gatwick. The North fast track security was bedlam since they were filtering the normal queue into the section. Not to be judgmental but I got the impression most people weren’t regular flyers, having to be repeatedly asked to remove belts, watches etc, slowing the whole process to a trickle. Never had this when on a BA flight from South. No OneWorld lounge in the North terminal meant I had to use the Aspire lounge. Although the staff were friendly it took an age to get in since the staff were having to work off multiple paper lists (queue was out the door to the lifts shortly after I arrived) and the setting was somewhat bland. Nowhere near the choice and quality of food and drink with BA’s offering a short transit ride away in South.

Once boarded the cabin crew were rushing around knocking into people without even an “excuse me” or “sorry”. Far from the calm BA experience where there’s normally some time to engage in pleasant welcome conversation.

The first leg was on a 787. The seats were terrible, no padding at all and within an hour I was squirming with discomfort. I flew the 15-hours LHR-SCL in BA’s 787 WT seat in comparative heaven! Fortunately I’m not a big movie watcher, because I couldn’t connect any headphones with the entertainment system; I’ve never had a broken system on BA. Instead I prefer to follow the flight’s progress but the moving map didn’t have a ‘stats window’ so I couldn’t ‘geek out’ knowing our altitude or speed, nor know the time left to destination. In fact I found the whole touch screen poorer than that on BA (bar the old 777 / 747s), with the mouse cursor not sychronised with my finger presses. The pocket on the seat in front was so tight and full with magazines, headphones etc that I couldn’t fit my small laptop in; it had to stay on my lap when not in use. I’ll excuse the screaming babies and iPads being used with no headphones. To top it all off my seat neighbor was a nightmare! However at least the plane was almost spotlessly clean.

The second leg was a A330 and despite being almost empty I was shocked by the crew taking no action to large groups of people stood up while taxiing to the runway and repeated disobedience of the seatbelt sign. Fifteen minutes before landing the passenger in front was laid across all four seats asleep when I overheard the crew asking another “should I wake him?”. This has led me to be more reassured by BA’s approach to safety.

I didn’t think the meals were any better than BA’s offering (the green Thai curry was very bland compared to KUL with BA, if I remember the route right), but it was nice for them to use metal cutlery rather than plastic. On the first leg the only alcohol service was seventy minutes before landing, not even with the food, despite being listed at the top of the paper menu. I’ve found BA always have a few mini bottles of wine on the trolley, even at breakfast. It took a lot longer to be served the meal and also for trays to be cleared away compared to every BA experience I’ve had. The crew also left the brakes off on trolleys causing me to have to grab it as it rolled down the aisle. Personal requests to the crew for a wine went unfulfilled.

Disembarking both flights the crew insisted on emptying the business cabin before letting Economy even start leaving (this took around twenty minutes), and then at DOH it was a bus transfer; good job we arrived on time!

We had a fairly long delay leaving DOH for RGN but forty minutes went past after doors closed before any announcement from the captain - I’ve always found BA brilliant in providing updates during delays.

A long ramble I know, plus I’ve probably been too picky and opinions are always subjective, but from my limited experience I now think BA’s Economy offering is actually pretty good! I will claim ignorance as I don’t travel as much as you lot (c.600 hours) but surely some BA praise wouldn’t go amiss for a change :-)

I think it depends where you’re flying. I’ve just gone to Cape Town in Ba in what must be one of their oldest 747s with the entertainment system not working (what a surprise!) and I forgot to pack a US adaptor for the seat power (in club)- no USB power and none at all in economy!

I found Qatar to Sri Lanka via Doha at Xmas a luxury in comparison but on the way back we got one of their older planes which also had no seat power and was really uncomfortable (found Doha airport v easy though).

Then again the newer planes on Ba I would agree are good in economy.

Any company can have a difficult day where things don’t go well for its customers.

BA has too many days of poor service to chalk it up to bad luck.

I have to disagree with most of that I’m afraid. Having flown 30+ sectors in QR Y last year, I think their product is far superior to BA.

Both carriers have good and bad aircraft, and yes BA’s 788/9s are better than QRs, and yes most of the QR 332/3s aren’t in the best shape, but everything else tends to make up for it.

Cabin crew on QR are just as good as BA, if a little more polished (and sometimes less rude), always recognise your status (maybe only 10% of flights on BA) and generally are good at dealing with passenger safety (if you want a bad example, may I recommend AA who on a recent TATL flight failed to carry out a cabin secure check before takeoff or landing - there were actual carry on cases in an exit row which didn’t get dealt with).

The food on QR is it least on par with BA, and soon to improve significantly with larger portions and a new service style.

IFE is better on most QR aircraft too, I’ve never had it not work, compared to countless flights with BA where some or all of the aircraft has been offline.

Of course, opinion is all relative, but I can honestly say that given then fact QR is usually cheaper than BA direct, I will continue to chose them first, even if they leave Oneworld.

Agree with the comment on AA - on my last flight landing from LAX into LHR all of the curtains between the cabins were still closed (I’m sure this isn’t allowed for landing) and the passenger across from me in J still had her breakfast plate - the landing seemed to catch the crew entirely by surprise - most still wandering around as we crossed over Windsor.