Havoc10G

I have lived in the region for a while too and of course there are good and bad experiences everywhere but I find overall it's a better quality of life than many places. Not sure how long I could manage living in NY for example! Although I do enjoy visiting the Big Apple.

orbitmic

Not in my experience. I use BA extensively and QF regularly, and when I have had problems such as schedule changes, seat changes, etc, it has usually been resolved adequately. Of course BA is one of my "home" FFPs but for QF I am just another OW Emerald, just the same as for QR. QR is a great airline to fly, but when problems occur the impression is often that one is bangine one's head against a wall. I do think there is a general back office issue here, and in my opinion, this is much worse with QR than with either BA or QF.

Havoc10G

I accept your point regarding the back office it does need some work! I am also OWE lifetime so have travelled BA alot and find service on board to be comparatively poor compared to main Middle East airlines. I group the service as a whole in responding to some posts about poor service in the region. I do find EK to be good generally however including on the ground.

mecabq

Yes.

zehbra

What I find most stunning is the stark contrast between "front line" people and back office. Lounge staff, servers etc. in DOH (and I'm sure elsewhere in the region) are generally awesome, and they actually do seem genuine most of the time. Truly friendly people. But obviously they have no power if worst comes to worst.... and if you have to deal with the back office, it's quite a different experience sadly.

mecabq

I partially agree with you. There's no doubt that many front-line staff are severely constrained in their ability to provide good service by a lack of decent processes, systems, and training; disempowerment from management; and poor leadership in general. Qatar Airways is a quintessential example of this.

But I still find front-line service in the GCC worse in general than other regions, and not entirely for the reasons I mentioned in the paragraph above.

Christian2011

I also had some negative experiences recently. I was resigned to the fact that the chosen aircrafts changed after booking but now I saw online that the flight itinerary changed as well meanwhile (four weeks before departure) without getting any information although I booked direct at the Qatar Airways website. Other airlines even send updated information if there is a change of only 5 minutes but from Qatar no information.
Because of the changed flight schedule the transit time is reduced to 1:30 hrs and I called the customer service and asked if it is possible because of the reduced transit time to change the first short segment to one flight earlier to avoid to run through HIA airport in case of flight delays. I would have accepted to pay the rebooking fee but in addition I was told that I have to pay another surcharge because of now different booking classes ... so I stopped really disappointed the request.
I know that the minimum transit time is less than one hour. Before I asked I checked the one flight earlier for the first segment and saw that even more seats are available compared to my "original" flight - so it would have been a benefit for both.
Funny enough was also the statement while the call that the transit at HIA is very fast and "there are no busses at the new airport" to the aircrafts ... so last month from Gate D I was moved with a Fata Morgana (others as well) into the aircraft or are all gates finished now that there are no busses anymore?

VH-RMD

Just walk slowly between flights....

freakstar

Got 10K miles in the end.

romana2

Not really bad customer service but I'm a bit surprised. When I turned Silver I got a nice informative email from QR congratulating me and explaining what the perks were. Since I turned Gold on Friday I haven't heard anything. Oh well... at least I had a lovely business class meal meal on that flight