forkknifespoon

Anyone know if I can hope for compensation for a terrible flight if I book an AA award on Qatar metal? Had the worst J experience of all time today. A family of 8 decided it was okay for them to share 5 Business class seats... They had 3 kids in Economy that they kept sneaking in to Business. Finally the purser and crew gave up and just let them stay. Sprawled out on the floor, running down the aisles screaming and roaring, sitting on my seat when I would go to the restroom, and even eating meals meant for true Business class passengers. Their kids would use the bathroom and leave it drenched in pee. The flight attendants were so busy catering to the family that they often screwed up my meal. At one point, the attendant screwed up and delivered the same meal to me twice. I wouldn't even know who I would complain to (AA/QR)??

Oh - and to add once the sanctity of the curtain was breached by this family, others started coming in to the cabin too... At one point, a random Economy pax came in and went to sleep in an empty chair for 2 hours before being told to go back.

jckl

Let me guess, are they Arabs?

plunet

Your only sensible route to complain would be to QR, AA had no influence over what happened on board a QR service.

It sounds like the passengers you wouldn't want to travel with, and although the QR staff were run ragged with the antics of this group, do you think they could have done more? If the crew actions could have really done much to prevent this behaviour then by all means write in but don't expect much to happen other than to flag to HQ that either the passengers were unreasonable or the crew were not doing what they needed to. If you're looking for compensation I would forget it.

IAN-UK

It's probably unreasonable to expect cash compensation for the antics of fellow passengers, though you might get an apology for the crew's inability to preserve the sanctity of the forward cabin.

I've observed from both sides of the curtain that crew are usually pretty on the ball in this respect. However there's something of a problem for crew to enforce "rules" where high profile nationals are concerned.

lost_in_translation

This is probably not what you wanted to hear, but I'm afraid the best thing for you to do here is to write this off as a bad experience and move on. There was probably a quite small chance you might have been able to do something about it had you made a direct complaint to the cabin manager onboard, but by complaining now I'd put your chances of getting compensation for this at marginally above zero. QR is, unfortunately, not well known for service recovery gestures even for its own high level status passengers travelling on cash tickets, so the likelihood they will be minded to compensate someone on a redemption ticket through a partner is even more remote. QR's customer service levels on the ground have also deteriorated significantly over the last six months from an already relatively low base - see the various sad threads in this forum for evidence of that.

There is a complaint form provided on QR's US website here should you wish to still make a complaint - https://www.qatarairways.com/en-us/contact-us.html . I would suggest that rather than helping to provide closure all this will do is further irritate you when you subsequently receive a copy-and-paste-type response from customer services in a couple of weeks.

Even leaving all of this aside, inconsiderate fellow passengers are unfortunately a risk of commercial air travel that one just has to deal with.

lost_in_translation

Hi Syed,

Welcome to FlyerTalk and sorry your first post is due to such unfortunate circumstances. Do you mean by this that you checked your laptop in for a QR flight and it then disappeared from your checked bag / you never received the piece of luggage back? If so, I would think travel insurance would be your best channel here as a first point of call assuming you have it. By all means keep the pressure on QR and follow-up with them probably a week or two after your first complaint was filed but you may find it is easier just to claim on travel insurance if this is an option for you.

flyertalker09567

Sorry to hear that but unfortunately I don't think you will get anything from this. I already experienced the same in Y, J even F and nothing was done.
This is one of the drawback of flying QR, based on my experience of course. You may encounter more disturbance with just 4 rows of J than a full upper deck in Club World.

NoY

What was the route?

Phil the Flyer

FlyerTalker37

Delete

flyertalker09567

I was more thinking of a full and cramped section of the a380. But you get the idea

Crisu69

was in J 787 one time and drinking champagner at the small 'bar area'. One arab woman from behing Y tried to use toilett in J and flight attendant send her back to use toilett in Y but had a big diskussion because arab woman did not want to understand why she can not use area in J.
so i think its up to the crew how assertive they are, even with arab people.

gpeso8

I have found that the FAs are pretty good with escorting pax back to Y when they attempt to use the lavatories in J. On my last DOH-CGK flight we had an out of service toilet in J. An older women came from Y and was waiting to use the bathroom in J, my wife was also waiting and the older woman struck up a friendly conversation with her. The FA politely waited for the conversation to conclude before escorting her back to Y.

forkknifespoon

They were an Arab family, yes. The flight crew could have done a far better job. I can't help but think that this would never happen on American Airlines (I've flown their J product dozens of times) because the staff wouldn't allow that blatant disregard for authority. What could they have done differently? Gotten the pilot involved, perhaps? They were disobeying the purser continuously and treated her like everything she said was an ignorable suggestion.

PxC

I've noticed economy PAX using the J toilets a few times on the 787, and I've always wondered whether I should say anything if they are queuing to use one of the J toilets. On one hand, why should I wait behind someone who shouldn't be using them.... on the other hand, it does seem snobbish.

As far as the kids being in the business class section, I would be complaining to the flight attendants a lot until that is sorted as it's unacceptable. If they want to spend time with their kids they need to go to the kids' seats, especially when it's impacting your experience.

Even if the kids did have J tickets, running up and down the aisle making noise? I have sympathy when kids make noise (ie. crying) and the parents are trying to calm them, but letting them **** off other passengers isn't fair and I would have no problems saying something.