travelhappypair

We are looking to visit Cambodia for the first time next January and there is a good J fare with Qatar leaving from our home airport, Edinburgh, there is a change of aircraft in Doha and a technical stop in Ho Chi Min City. Does anyone know if we are guaranteed a flat bed for the whole trip and will we have to get off the plane at HCMC? Thanks for your help.

Dr. HFH

You should not have to get off at SGN. Many pax will, however, as SGN will be their final destination. My understanding is that most pax are bound for SGN, not PNH.

Presumably you're talking about QR 970. It's normally operated by an Airbus 33x. If so, you'll have a flat-bed seat, but whether it's horizontal flat or angled flat depends on which variant of that aircraft you have on your particular day. If it's not horizontal flat (180º), it will be angled flat at 165º.

remdk

travelhappypair welcome to the QR forum. Do have a look at the QR dashboard you will find it a useful tool when using this forum.

The EDI-DOH flight will be on a B787 with horizontal 'herring-bone' seats.

On the DOH-PNH route QR use A330-200 almost exclusively. If you look at the dashboard widget http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar...ays-fleet.html you will see that all aircraft have 'horizontal' seats'. QR no longer have sloping seats on its widebodied fleet.
Since the stop in SGN is a 'technical' stop it is very doubtful that you will be required to leave the aircraft there.

ashbjr

@travelhappypair I live in Phnom Penh and do the PNH-DOH-PNH sectors multiple times a year. You will NOT have to get off the plane at SGN, but a cleaning crew at SGN usually comes in to clean and there is usually a change of flight crew, but without much disturbance in the J cabin. There is a quick baggage identification procedure and the flight attendants will generally offer drink and light snack service during the 60 minute or so wait. The flight to PNH is very quick..about 20 mins or so in the air.

On the question of QR970/971 and the J product, the flight is operated on the A330-200 but this aircraft comes in multiple configurations (old and new) and I have found it quite difficult to determine which configuration you will get. The preferred product (at least in my opinion) is the new 180 degree B/E Diamond seats similar to the A319 Business One premier in 2-2-2 configuration. But if you look at Flightradar, there is no particular pattern to when you get this new configuration or the older configuration, which is similar to the B777 J seats (still flat, and still 2-2-2 but an older product). One thing I do like about the latter is that it comes with Wifi and Live TV access whereas the new product ironically doesn't. You can check the flightradar history and the wiki suggested by @remdk to check for the pattern of which configurations are operating the flight. Hope this is helpful.

Dr. HFH

According to EF, this flight is currently (I checked seven consecutive days starting August 17) 5×333 and 2×332 each week but it looks as though by next January it will go to 7×333. Of course, as you can see from the two previous posts by remdk and ashbjr, there apparently is still some question as to which configuration/seats you'll get.

travelhappypair

Thanks so much for the information - it sounds like a good way to get to Phnom Phen, although my husband is now suggesting a stop off in KL!! So more research to do.

remdk

travelhappypair have you considered DOH-BKK-PNH? The BKK-PNH is a codeshare with Bangkok Air so you need to change aircraft in BKK. Being a codeshare there should be no problems with your luggage.