(PICS) London to Melbourne, via Athens and Doha. QR Business Class Trip Report
Jul 25, 2012, 9:00 am
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: London, UK and Occitanie, France
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(PICS) London to Melbourne, via Athens and Doha. QR Business Class Trip Report
Hi all... well this is the first proper trip report I've done, so hope it's useful to someone. A lot of it is quite similar to SixthFreedom's trip report of QR's 777-LR service only a few weeks back. But hopefully it is of interest!
BA 640 LHR-ATH
Airbus A321
This part of the trip was unremarkable for me, as it’s one I’ve done a few before. I fly BA normally, and in fact due to an unusual timing with business and an already-planned holiday, I had to start my trip to Melbourne from Athens. So I was able to redeem Avios for this flight. It was an early start, but I was able to have breakfast in the First lounge at T5 and a coffee. Boarding was from A10B, so I couldn’t take my coffee on the coach and had to glug it while I waited for the coach to load up. We departed a mere 20 minutes behind schedule, which is pretty impressive for T5. I was in row 11 (the second exit row), so plenty of room and I just got on with some reading I needed to do.
Athens Airport
I arrived in Athens off the BA flight to find that I couldn’t check in to my Qatar flight for another two hours. Swissport, who do the ground handling for Qatar in Athens, were very firm—they would not check me in early, even though I was in Business Class.
The “free” wifi in the Athens airport, at least that in the main terminal and the restaurant area, was miserable, only barely connecting (even though I was showing a full signal), dropping packets, and generally behaving badly. I sprung for a 60-minute pass, thinking the paid version would be better. I was very wrong. Same problems. I had some lunch in the food court, which in Athens has a very nice salad bar and some classic Greek home cooked dishes (moussaka, lamb stew, meatballs, roasted chicken, that sort of thing). I’ve stopped there before and it’s a welcome change to the fast food outlets you normally see at airports. Indeed, a welcome change to the fast food outlets there too!
About three hours before the flight, I trotted over to check-in desk 55, where there was one person ahead of me in the queue for business class check-in. She handed me a lounge pass, my boarding pass for the ATH-DOH flight, and my boarding pass for DOH-MEL tucked into the red sleeve for the Premium Terminal in Doha.
The Swissport lounge was almost completely empty—during the three hours I was there I saw four other people (interestingly, not among them were the other three in the business cabin for the flight!). The snack selection was dire, which was fine with me as I’d had lunch before. I had a nice cold Mythos though, and the wifi worked a bit better. Then I had another. The lounge attendant came and got me about thirty minutes or so before the flight, and I went through the adjacent security gate (one family in front of me), and walked down to A7 to board.
QR 477 ATH-DOH
Airbus A321
I boarded at about 15 minutes before scheduled departure, and there was no separate queue for premium passengers. It only took about three minutes to work through the ten or so people in front of me, and there wasn’t a queue in the jetway (which was nice, as it was about 35C by that point!). When I boarded, I was the first passenger in the biz cabin. I was offered a drink, and I just asked for water. I was also offered a newspaper, and I asked for an English one, and was offered an International Herald Tribune.
I felt mildly awkward as the rest of the Y passengers boarded, because even though it’s a short-haul aircraft, these are very nice seats indeed. I had to busy myself with reading the paper and trying to be unobtrusive while the rest of the passengers boarded and walked past me.
I’m a tall guy (1.9 m/6’3”) so I wouldn’t expect to be able to stretch out forever. But indeed my feet were touching the front of the seat in front of me. There was no one there so I don’t know what the space would have been like if it had been reclined, but as it was there was plenty of room.
In the end there were only four of us in the business cabin, out of 12 seats. One each in the first two rows, and two of us in row 3. I moved from the aisle to the window to watch the world go by.
Prior to takeoff we were offered an amenity kit (Ferragamo) and handed a binder with a wine/drinks list and a menu.
Subsequently the flight attendants came by and asked us first what we might like to drink after takeoff (a gin and tonic please) and then shortly after that what we’d like for dinner. I liked the look of the starters, and since I’d had a nice sized lunch already, I didn’t want a big meal. I asked if I could have a couple of the starters—and was told absolutely, I could have whatever I liked. I chose the soup and the cold meat salad. The soup was quite salty, but decent. The cold roasted meat salad was nice—the beef was absolutely delicious and very tender.
I asked for the cheese plate later, which was not bad, but not amazing. With it I had a glass of the Chateau Monbousquet St Emilion Grand Cru 2006, which was very nice indeed.
The meal service was very quick, and all over within the first 45 minutes of flight time, which left quite a long time for me to start this trip report! Oh, and get some work done.
A note about amenities: I popped into the front toilet, which was very pleasantly decorated with flowers but wasn’t impeccably clean, to find a basket of shaving kits and toothbrushes/toothpastes. Also there were Molton Brown soaps, which I understand also supplied the amenity kits until quite recently. Interesting little bit of confusing human factors design in this picture—the unused amenity kit from this flight to the first reader who got this far and PMs me with the answer!
This flight was the first one I’ve personally been on that had the ability to SMS from onboard. Obviously I sent a text to my beloved, and got one in return! We shall see how much the bill for that will be.
You can see by the moving map that we took quite an odd, circuitous routing to get from Athens to Doha. This was due to us avoiding Syrian airspace, what with the current unrest there. The result was we got to see quite a lot of Turkey at sunset, which as everyone knows is a VERY big country, and then flew down over eastern Iraq towards the Gulf. I guess it only cost about an extra half an hour of flight time, but it certainly seems like a much longer route.
Later during the flight, I asked for a cup of tea. It was brought out with a smile and two shortbread biscuits. (N.B.: That’s something that happens only irregularly on BA in J. Come on, BA, that should be a service standard. You know people want a biscuit with a cup of tea—but don’t make them ask for it.) In this case I was a bastion of strength: I said no thank you. Sigh.
About an hour and a half out of Doha, one of the FAs silently put a bottle of water and a single chocolate down for each passenger. This one I couldn’t resist. It was lovely.
Interestingly for me—having never flown over Iraq before—we flew right over Basra and got some great night-time views.
There is quite a lot of traffic coming into and going out of Doha in the 2200-0000 period, so we were told to expect delays coming in. We did arrive about half an hour late. The four of us in Business were put on our own into the first coach and whisked the 200 metres or so to the premium terminal, where we went inside and were security screened before being allowed into the lounge.
Premium Transfer Terminal, Doha
Other folks on FT have said that this is “just another lounge” and that it’s nothing special. I can confirm that there were no angels, no gold leaf on the taps, there were no dancing girls (or boys) welcoming passengers into the terminal. However, it is a very nice lounge, with some of the nicest looking food I’ve seen at an airport lounge. There were about five dining areas, and everything looked amazing. Also the wifi is fast and it works on the first go. I didn’t look for any booze, but it is Ramadan and I didn’t see any floating about freely—the bar had water on display and soft drinks visible in the cooler behind. I took a quick shower, downloaded email on my phone, had a soda, and then popped downstairs for boarding.
To be continued...
BA 640 LHR-ATH
Airbus A321
This part of the trip was unremarkable for me, as it’s one I’ve done a few before. I fly BA normally, and in fact due to an unusual timing with business and an already-planned holiday, I had to start my trip to Melbourne from Athens. So I was able to redeem Avios for this flight. It was an early start, but I was able to have breakfast in the First lounge at T5 and a coffee. Boarding was from A10B, so I couldn’t take my coffee on the coach and had to glug it while I waited for the coach to load up. We departed a mere 20 minutes behind schedule, which is pretty impressive for T5. I was in row 11 (the second exit row), so plenty of room and I just got on with some reading I needed to do.
Athens Airport
I arrived in Athens off the BA flight to find that I couldn’t check in to my Qatar flight for another two hours. Swissport, who do the ground handling for Qatar in Athens, were very firm—they would not check me in early, even though I was in Business Class.
The “free” wifi in the Athens airport, at least that in the main terminal and the restaurant area, was miserable, only barely connecting (even though I was showing a full signal), dropping packets, and generally behaving badly. I sprung for a 60-minute pass, thinking the paid version would be better. I was very wrong. Same problems. I had some lunch in the food court, which in Athens has a very nice salad bar and some classic Greek home cooked dishes (moussaka, lamb stew, meatballs, roasted chicken, that sort of thing). I’ve stopped there before and it’s a welcome change to the fast food outlets you normally see at airports. Indeed, a welcome change to the fast food outlets there too!
About three hours before the flight, I trotted over to check-in desk 55, where there was one person ahead of me in the queue for business class check-in. She handed me a lounge pass, my boarding pass for the ATH-DOH flight, and my boarding pass for DOH-MEL tucked into the red sleeve for the Premium Terminal in Doha.
The Swissport lounge was almost completely empty—during the three hours I was there I saw four other people (interestingly, not among them were the other three in the business cabin for the flight!). The snack selection was dire, which was fine with me as I’d had lunch before. I had a nice cold Mythos though, and the wifi worked a bit better. Then I had another. The lounge attendant came and got me about thirty minutes or so before the flight, and I went through the adjacent security gate (one family in front of me), and walked down to A7 to board.
QR 477 ATH-DOH
Airbus A321
I boarded at about 15 minutes before scheduled departure, and there was no separate queue for premium passengers. It only took about three minutes to work through the ten or so people in front of me, and there wasn’t a queue in the jetway (which was nice, as it was about 35C by that point!). When I boarded, I was the first passenger in the biz cabin. I was offered a drink, and I just asked for water. I was also offered a newspaper, and I asked for an English one, and was offered an International Herald Tribune.
I felt mildly awkward as the rest of the Y passengers boarded, because even though it’s a short-haul aircraft, these are very nice seats indeed. I had to busy myself with reading the paper and trying to be unobtrusive while the rest of the passengers boarded and walked past me.
I’m a tall guy (1.9 m/6’3”) so I wouldn’t expect to be able to stretch out forever. But indeed my feet were touching the front of the seat in front of me. There was no one there so I don’t know what the space would have been like if it had been reclined, but as it was there was plenty of room.
In the end there were only four of us in the business cabin, out of 12 seats. One each in the first two rows, and two of us in row 3. I moved from the aisle to the window to watch the world go by.
Prior to takeoff we were offered an amenity kit (Ferragamo) and handed a binder with a wine/drinks list and a menu.
Subsequently the flight attendants came by and asked us first what we might like to drink after takeoff (a gin and tonic please) and then shortly after that what we’d like for dinner. I liked the look of the starters, and since I’d had a nice sized lunch already, I didn’t want a big meal. I asked if I could have a couple of the starters—and was told absolutely, I could have whatever I liked. I chose the soup and the cold meat salad. The soup was quite salty, but decent. The cold roasted meat salad was nice—the beef was absolutely delicious and very tender.
I asked for the cheese plate later, which was not bad, but not amazing. With it I had a glass of the Chateau Monbousquet St Emilion Grand Cru 2006, which was very nice indeed.
The meal service was very quick, and all over within the first 45 minutes of flight time, which left quite a long time for me to start this trip report! Oh, and get some work done.
A note about amenities: I popped into the front toilet, which was very pleasantly decorated with flowers but wasn’t impeccably clean, to find a basket of shaving kits and toothbrushes/toothpastes. Also there were Molton Brown soaps, which I understand also supplied the amenity kits until quite recently. Interesting little bit of confusing human factors design in this picture—the unused amenity kit from this flight to the first reader who got this far and PMs me with the answer!
This flight was the first one I’ve personally been on that had the ability to SMS from onboard. Obviously I sent a text to my beloved, and got one in return! We shall see how much the bill for that will be.
You can see by the moving map that we took quite an odd, circuitous routing to get from Athens to Doha. This was due to us avoiding Syrian airspace, what with the current unrest there. The result was we got to see quite a lot of Turkey at sunset, which as everyone knows is a VERY big country, and then flew down over eastern Iraq towards the Gulf. I guess it only cost about an extra half an hour of flight time, but it certainly seems like a much longer route.
Later during the flight, I asked for a cup of tea. It was brought out with a smile and two shortbread biscuits. (N.B.: That’s something that happens only irregularly on BA in J. Come on, BA, that should be a service standard. You know people want a biscuit with a cup of tea—but don’t make them ask for it.) In this case I was a bastion of strength: I said no thank you. Sigh.
About an hour and a half out of Doha, one of the FAs silently put a bottle of water and a single chocolate down for each passenger. This one I couldn’t resist. It was lovely.
Interestingly for me—having never flown over Iraq before—we flew right over Basra and got some great night-time views.
There is quite a lot of traffic coming into and going out of Doha in the 2200-0000 period, so we were told to expect delays coming in. We did arrive about half an hour late. The four of us in Business were put on our own into the first coach and whisked the 200 metres or so to the premium terminal, where we went inside and were security screened before being allowed into the lounge.
Premium Transfer Terminal, Doha
Other folks on FT have said that this is “just another lounge” and that it’s nothing special. I can confirm that there were no angels, no gold leaf on the taps, there were no dancing girls (or boys) welcoming passengers into the terminal. However, it is a very nice lounge, with some of the nicest looking food I’ve seen at an airport lounge. There were about five dining areas, and everything looked amazing. Also the wifi is fast and it works on the first go. I didn’t look for any booze, but it is Ramadan and I didn’t see any floating about freely—the bar had water on display and soft drinks visible in the cooler behind. I took a quick shower, downloaded email on my phone, had a soda, and then popped downstairs for boarding.
To be continued...
