[celesetehedequist]

In reply to: What are your 5 best airlines?

Based on my personal experiences and positive feedback from fellow travelers, here are five airlines that consistently stand out:

Singapore Airlines: Love their top-notch service, comfy cabins, and awesome in-flight entertainment.
Emirates: Whenever I’m in the mood for luxury, Emirates delivers with spacious seating and fantastic service, especially in business and first class.
Qatar Airways: Modern fleet, cozy seats, and their customer service? Spot-on.
Cathay Pacific: Always impressed by their attentive staff, quality meals, and the comfort they provide on those long-haul flights.
ANA (All Nippon Airways): They’ve got the punctuality game on lock, plus their flights are consistently clean and their service is top-notch, especially on those Japan routes.
Keep in mind, these are just my personal faves, and everyone’s preferences can differ!

[travelsforfun]

In reply to: What are your 5 best airlines?

In no particularly order: Cathay Pacific, JAL, Aegean, Finnair, Swiss

I put a strong emphasis on the soft product and customer service – which is why, for example, I didn’t include Qatar Airways or Alaska Airlines.

In the last year I’ve made return Business Class flights to Jakarta and Kathmandu and am a Gold Member.

As I was travelling with a close friend to Kathmandu last month, I twice contacted the airline to ask if I could take a guest into the main lounge. I wasn’t really expecting a positive reply because I think that lounge is actually only for First/Business class passengers. I was pleased to receive a confirmation in writing that I could do this. In fact, I received this in writing twice.

Checking into the lounge for our transit with my friend, we were refused access sadly. I showed the Lounge Manager the two written confirmations which he simply refused to accept in quite an almost aggresive manner. This episode was embarrasing for my friend and I so we left. This wasn’t what I expected and I remain very disappointed……

I note that several of the perks have now dissapeared with no fresh hot/cold towels being offered anymore and the fabulous pyjamas are no more.

I’ll continue to fly Qatar Airways, particularly when they return to my local airpor, Cardiff in Wales.

Hoping that someone in Qatar Airways Customer Services will read this and reply as my two online complaints to them about the lounge episode remain unanswered.

So Ive just returned on a mammoth trip to Asia and wanted to share my thoughts on 4 separate Qatar Airways flights, strangely on what I presume are their 4 different premium class products. It was my first time back on QR after Covid so was interested to see what, if anything, had changed.

First flight, Madrid – Doha. First time on QSuites. Superb. Made a reasonable dent in the extensive and very nice wine list. Food, whilst presented beautifully seemed to lack the wow factor in terms of quality of previous years (maybe other airlines have caught up or Im harder to please?). I don’t normally watch IFE on planes but as this was a longer daytime flight – was actually quite disappointed by the rather limited content available – far less than Emirates in any class. Random episodes of things rather than full boxsets.

Connected onto Dubai, almost missed my flight due to a delayed inbound but boarded (by bus) the rather sad looking A330 for what was positioned as a First class flight of course on an intra-GCC flight. Seats were very old and of the angled lie flat variety. Perfectly okay of course for a 50 minute flight. Menus / wine list all available. How they served food in such time is beyond me, Luggage missed the connection and had to wait around for an hour to get any info (app was not updated with the news it didn’t make the flight!). Oddly Qatar only have 3 flights a day DOH – DXB (2 of them at exactly the same time), so I ended up waiting almost 24 hours to be reunited with my luggage.

Why do some connections make you go through security and some not? Ive never understood this.

Third flight true first class on the now showing its age A380 BKK to Doha. Legrest on 1A didn’t work so had to move seats. Didn’t visit the bar as it was a relatively short flight (6 hours) Food again lacked the wow factor. Service is very good. Boarding was oddly chaotic and the staff seemed super embarrassed when I eventually got to the front of the line and they saw I had a F boarding pass. Lounge at Bangkok was excellent. Staff everywhere, so attentive.
Interestingly when connecting in Doha I attempted (and eventually persuaded them) to let me use the F lounge rather than business given id flown in on an F ticket and F didn’t exist on my connection. Al Safwa lounge is a haven of peace and quiet. Until you attempt to have a shower which they clearly don’t have enough of. I had flashbacks to BAs first class lounge Elemis spa with staff just saying ‘no’ to customer after customer.
Final flight, the 787 back to the UK. Reverse herringbone. It’s a great product, clearly lacks privacy (although still has more privacy than F on the A380). Everything is just there. Charger, table, storage. It just works. Same pajamas and toiletries provided as given on the previous F class leg.
So in conclusion, a lot of inconsistencies of product. The A380 (and true First class) is surely not long for this world and I doubt the A380 will ever see the Qsuites. With Q suites being so good, this creates such a step down to economy – surely premium economy has to be considered? Qatar don’t carry the bling of Emirates, just quiet, understated colour tones and super attentive service. Q suites is stunning. Throw in regional UK connections, and good mileage earning and burning opportunities and they are still the airline to beat for me.

8 users thanked author for this post.

James, AndrewinHK, Jacob, esselle, sparkyflier, cwoodward, stevescoots, christ

Flew Qatar from GRU – DOH – AUH last month and had a good flight with them. Seat comfy, food good, got reasonable sleep and good IFE.

Then they didn’t connect my luggage from Doha to Abu Dhabi. Not the end of the world, but this is where a genuine saga began. Potentially the worst customer service I’ve had from an airline in 20-years, no answers, no reply’s to emails, on hold online chatting forever and no-one particularly interested in finding my cases.

Via my Air-Tags I located them at AUH, went there myself, spoke with the airport and retrieved my bags (among over 400 other bags) and all was well after THREE hugely frustrating days of no clothes other than the ’emergency’ stuff I’d packed in my carry-on. More frustrating was the hours and hours of my time I wasted speaking with QR. I did all the social media stuff too calling them out – no reply’s to anything.

Just a wee heads-up to anyone flying with them or considering flying with them, great product in the sky, dismal customer service on the ground.

Rgds,
AOTG.

8 users thanked author for this post.

AsiaPacific, sparkyflier, fqtvgla, Tommy, Jacob, MarkCymru, Catalina, Tom Otley

[DannyBoy]

In reply to: BA Best and Worst

I prefer the LGW lounges to LHR.

Not sure if anyone heard but earlier in the week BA and QR signed a new expansion. It was interesting to read Al Bakers comments.

BRITISH AIRWAYS AND QATAR AIRWAYS COMPLETE EXPANSION TO FORM THE LARGEST AIRLINE JOINT BUSINESS

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said: “The growing collaboration between Qatar Airways and British Airways shows our customers our common goal to offer an unparalleled network with unique benefits. Travellers can now experience the best in quality and service as they travel across our joint network. The joint business between our airlines cements both Qatar Airways and British Airways as industry leaders, aiming to provide the utmost flexibility and unrivalled connectivity to our customers.”

https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/news/26092022/british-airways-and-qatar-airways-complete-expansion-to-form-the-largest-airline-joint-business?ref=Home

Travelling to Abu Dhabi from Wellington, not for the faint hearted.

Our travel was booked through Etihad, flying from Wellington to Abu Dhabi (via Auckland and Sydney) departing 26 July. Etihad was code sharing the first two flights with Air New Zealand (i.e. Wellington to Auckland and Auckland to Sydney).

We are in our late 60s and this was going to be a long trip even if everything had gone to plan, but we were met with a series of system errors, stresses, poor attitudes and extreme delays.

26 July
Both flights leaving Wellington and Auckland were delayed by about 20 minutes. The Auckland to Sydney flight (Air New Zealand flight NZ109) was due to land in Sydney at 6.00pm but was diverted to Brisbane arriving 9.30pm, after circling Sydney 20-30 minutes. We were told we were unable to land in Sydney due to high winds, but Qantas flights continued to land in Sydney while our flight was circling.

Once the passengers had disembarked in Brisbane, passengers who were supposed to be travelling via Abu Dhabi to London Heathrow were re-booked to fly Qatar Airways via Doha and onto to London that same night.

Passengers travelling to (as opposed to via) Abu Dhabi were advised that we would be re-booked on a flight to Abu Dhabi from Sydney as Etihad doesn’t fly out of Brisbane.

It is not clear to us why we were not also flown to Abu Dhabi via Doha at this stage.

27 July
Eventually, in the early hours of Wednesday morning we were advised that we would be sent to a hotel. Unfortunately, the customs gate wasn’t open and when it eventually was opened there were no customs officials and so we finally got to our hotel room at 2.30am. 20 minutes later we received a text advising that our flight NZ1711 would be leaving for Sydney at 8.40am that morning.

When we arrived at check-in at Brisbane Airport on 27 July, flight NZ1711 was cancelled and we were re-booked for the 1.10pm flight to Sydney. However, we were then removed from this flight as there was no connecting flight for us in the system to Abu Dhabi.

We rang Etihad and Air New Zealand many times trying to confirm a connecting flight to Abu Dhabi. Each airline said that only the other airline could book the flight to Abu Dhabi, so no progress was made. Etihad had a flight leaving Sydney 3.15pm to Abu Dhabi that afternoon and we requested seats on that flight, but to no avail. We subsequently found out that it was Air New Zealand’s responsibility to re-book the flight to get us to Abu Dhabi as, once the original flight was changed by Air New Zealand, Etihad can’t override or control it in their system.

We eventually flew from Brisbane to Sydney, departing Brisbane 11.10am. On arrival at Sydney’s domestic airport we had to catch a taxi to the International airport. We were rushing to try and get to the International airport as soon as possible to see if we could speak to a customer service rep face to face, to arrange a flight to Abu Dhabi that afternoon.

The Air New Zealand counter was closed, but fortunately an Air New Zealand representative near the counter responded to our enquiries about our flights to Abu Dhabi and the possibility of the afternoon flight that we had asked about. She rang Etihad who said there were no seats available on the flight that afternoon. Our daughter rang Etihad who advised that economy was full but that there were seats in business class. I then walked to the Etihad counter. They confirmed that the flight was fully booked and closed, but suggested that we could fly to Melbourne and catch the Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi at 9.15pm that evening.

It is not clear to us why we were not flown to Melbourne from Brisbane in the first place instead of to Sydney if there were no seats on the flight to Abu Dhabi from Sydney.

We then went back to Air New Zealand and requested to be sent to Melbourne and booked on that evening Etihad flight. We then received a text 10 minutes later which said that we were booked onto flight EY455 28 July, departing 8.20pm to Abu Dhabi – nearly 1.5 days later. We returned to Air New Zealand explaining that we were unhappy with the new fight details. We also asked if Air New Zealand would be providing us with access to a hotel room, meal vouchers etc as we would be delayed by a further night in Sydney and were told that this is not Air New Zealand’s responsibility and that we should not have received any access to accommodation in Brisbane. This was incredibly upsetting to us and is just patently untrue and inconsistent with Air New Zealand’s policies (as stated on their website). I was in tears and felt powerless and overwhelmed by the lack of compassion.

Eventually, after we kept following up with the Air New Zealand staff on the ground in Sydney, we were then rebooked on a flight to Doha departing at 9.00pm that evening (Qatar Airways flight QR 909) with a connecting flight to Abu Dhabi (QR 1050) departing 2.10pm on 28 July.

In the meantime, Air New Zealand had found that our return flights from Abu Dhabi (EY450 Abu Dhabi to Sydney departing 18 August and EY4441 Sydney to Wellington) had been cancelled as we didn’t make our flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi the day before (EY455) due to the Sydney flight being redirected to Brisbane. They tried to have it reinstated but the Etihad booking system was down.

Checking in for the Doha flight we were advised that we couldn’t travel as we didn’t have a departing flight from Abu Dhabi (and so would not qualify for a Visitor Visa in Abu Dhabi). The customer service rep spoke to their supervisor, who then rang Etihad who confirmed it had been reinstated. We were then able to fly out on QR909. At this point it seemed like the last straw.

The remaining flights to Abu Dhabi went according to plan. We landed in Abu Dhabi on 28 July at 4.15pm, over one day and 11hours after we should have landed.

Return flights
18 August
We received a message from Etihad 6pm on Wednesday 17 August (less than 24 hours before scheduled take off) advising that our flight would be 2 hours late taking off. We were then delayed for a further hour on the tarmac. This compressed our transfer time in Sydney airport (we were originally supposed to have a 3.5 hour stop over/ transfer time but this was reduced to half an hour).

At check-in in Abu Dhabi on 18 August (for Etihad Flight EY450 Abu Dhabi to Sydney), we were told that we weren’t able to check-in for our next flight to Wellington (Sydney to Wellington) as the Etihad and Air New Zealand systems were apparently incompatible (even though our flights were fully booked through Etihad). We were told by the Etihad team to show them our Etihad air tickets with luggage tags on to get our boarding passes at the gate in Sydney.

19 August
We arrived in Sydney close to the boarding time of the flight from Sydney to Wellington and went directly to the departure gate for flight NZ246.

We were advised that we weren’t on the manifest and were told that Etihad needed to rebook the tickets for us. We showed the Etihad app with our itinerary, which showed that we were booked on that flight, the original schedule and an explanation of previous events. We asked for a manager but they were adamant that they were unable to help and Etihad would need to assist us.

Unsurprisingly in Sydney airport, we were unable to locate an open Etihad departure location so returned to the Air New Zealand gate, as the flight was closing.

On our return to the gate, our situation was being discussed with a senior staff member who found a way to get us on the flight (without our luggage).

21 August
Our luggage showed up 2 days later.

Our complaints
At no time has an apology been given or any compensation been offered discussed for the incompetence, lack of staff training, inconvenience or the huge stress that the events detailed above have caused us.

Leaving aside the question of why we could not land in Sydney when Qantas flights were landing all around us, as highlighted above, if Air New Zealand had been proactive they would have sent us on the Qatar flight to Doha, along with the rest of the passengers transitioning to London (on 26 July) or at the very least checked the other flights to Abu Dhabi from Australian Airports when they identified that there was no room on the Sydney to Abu Dhabi flight and flown us to Melbourne instead of back to Sydney.

Eithad cancelled our return tickets and had not advised us that they had done so even though our daughter had called them to ask about our situation and their records clearly showed what had happened. This resulted in us nearly missing our flight to Doha. In addition, when they reinstated the flights, it appears that they only half completed the task which caused the problem at Sydney airport.

Both Air NZ and Etihad appeared to only be interested in shifting the blame to the other and not actually helping their customer.

2 users thanked author for this post.

fatbear, Woodpecker

As a frequent business and leisure traveler, I have been flying mostly on Singapore Airlines for its excellent reliability and ground/cabin crew service. Recently, in view of the air-ticket price differential and Qatar’s reputation, my family and I decided give Qatar Airlines a try.

Given that Qatar Airlines has been awarded ‘Best Airlines’ by Skytrak, I thought that it may provide me with a comparable alternative to Singapore Airlines. However, my family’s experience as detailed below has proven otherwise.

I have submitted my feedbacks/requests via Qatar’s website on at least 2 occasions and sent reminders to their acknowledgment emails, however to-date (and since 30 May feedback via website) Qatar has not accorded the courtesy of a response. Hence, I am writing to this forum so that fellow travelers can make better decision in choosing airlines.

Details of my family’s ordeal are provided below:
My family’s flight to Istanbul via Doha was significantly affected by the retiming of flight QR947 SIN-DOH from 21:25 hrs to 10:35 hrs on 2 June 2022 of almost 11 hours earlier departure timing from Singapore to Doha.
The resulted in an extremely long layover of 17 hours 45 mins instead of a planned and bearable 7 hours 25 mins. The late notification (received on 30 May 19:54hrs) had also caused severe disruptions to my work (cancellation of meetings and an additional leave) and my children’s university commitments.

(1) Notification of flight disruption

It was during the course of downloading the Qatar Airways App that we noted that the flight timing differs from the timing originally booked.

In our anxiety, we called Customer Service Hotline immediately around 19:20 hrs to understand the situation and our options. However, we were only told to contact Qatar Airways Customer Care via portal/email. We duly lodged our concerns to seek alternative arrangements and or suitable recovery efforts at Doha Airport.
Interestingly, soon after our call, a notification of retiming received via email on 30 May 19:54hrs. Based on the official notification of the retiming, my family members have only slightly more than two and a half days 2 June 10:35 hrs to reschedule all prior commitments and to obtain leave approvals.

An acknowledgement of my email was subsequently received on 30 May 20:08 hrs. However, to-date (more than a month later) we have not heard from your office despite 2 email reminders.

(2) Ground support at Doha airport

(a) Flight disruption letter
Upon landing at Doha Airport, we approached Qatar Airways Transit Desk to listen to what customer recovery arrangements have been made for affected passengers. We have also requested for a ‘Flight disruption letter’ to facilitate any possible travel insurance claim.

The Country Manager told us that no flight disruption letter will be issued from Doha as the flight disruption had taken place outbound from Singapore. However, this was inconsistent with what passengers were told when the same request was made at the Qatar Airways check-in counter in Singapore i.e. to be provided at DOHA.

(b) Accommodation / lounge access
In relation to our request for accommodation / lounge access, the Country Manager explained that due to COVID-19 reasons, no accommodation nor lounge access could be arranged for affected passengers. Giving the benefit of the doubt to Qatar Airways, the least one would expect is for the airline to mitigate the inconvenience caused through other measures. Instead, other than meal vouchers, none was forthcoming.

We also note that some affected passengers were able to have lounge access or sleep pods at their own expense.

(c) Meal vouchers
On the subject of meal voucher, the initial offered voucher was for a ‘princely’ sum of 30 Qatari Rial per meal. When we got to the Food Court, we realised that a cup of fruit juice costs 27 Qatari Rial. Obviously, the meal voucher accorded is insufficient for a modest meal. It was only after much rationalisation with the ground staff that the voucher was increased to 60 Qatari Rial.

I hope that Qatar Airlines would now respond to my feedback/requests after reading this review.

[frustratedflyer]

In reply to: Worrying e-mail from BA

I have had one of these emails too. Reading it does make things rather unclear at first. The natural reaction is:

1. Has my flight be cancelled and are they just trying to get people to move to avoid compensation?
2. Are are they about to cancel my flight? (and trying to avoid cancellation)
3. Or simply scare people into not travelling.

As we all know this has been stimulated by Heathrow’s rather late decision to cap travellers at 100k per day when airlines have already sold more tickets than that. So BA I suppose is trying to get some travellers to rebook for later so they can perhaps consolidate yet more flights??! But to be clear here I believe LHR are to blame. They ignored the airlines when they suggested likely volumes of travellers and now can’t cope. Sadly it is the airlines (and mainly the Uk carriers that will feel the brunt of this) and not Heathrow (or their Spanish, Qatari, Canadian, US and Chinese) owners.

Will be interesting to see how this battle between the airlines desire to fly and LHR’s desire to restrict will end.

Anyway for those who have not seen BA’s email here it is:

Dear Customer,

We are getting in touch as you are due to travel with us on or before the 25 July 2022.

You may have seen in the news that airports across the world have imposed restrictions on the number of flights that airlines can operate. This week Heathrow Airport has set a passenger limit per day until September 2022. As a result, they have told us to adjust our flying schedule to reduce the number of customers using the airport this summer.

We understand that some customers may want to review their travel plans in light of the current travel challenges. We want to be as flexible as possible so that you can move your flights if you wish.

If you are due to travel between now and the 25 July 2022 and you wish to change your flights, we have introduced a policy that will allow you to easily change your travel dates via our website. This means you can rebook onto a British Airways operated service free of charge to any date within the next 12 months of your original date of travel, subject to availability.

You can do this simply by logging into your booking here.

Alternatively, if you decide that you no longer wish to travel, you can request a voucher for the value of your booking and when you are ready to use your voucher to book new flights, you can do so online. The voucher will be valid for travel before the 30 September 2023.

To request a voucher, click here.

If you have booked via a travel agent, please contact them directly to discuss your options.

If your flight is part of a British Airways Holidays package, you can review your options here.

Thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

British Airways

2 users thanked author for this post.

EasternPedlar, Tom Otley

[Shamsh1]

In reply to: How is avios treated with vouchers

Well, 350 days in advance – what a treat for loyal customers!
Being based in Austria, I often use Qatar Airways and enjoy a much better service and more comfort onboard. BA made it quite difficult to give them 1st priority when booking a trip. Just think of 7 across in a 787-9 compared with 4 across with QR in a nice little suit with lots of room around you.

[capetonianm]

In reply to: SAA – the end?

This article probably explains why SAA is doomed :

Ferial Haffajee: SAA strike grabs headlines, but the flying market has moved on

We thanked our lucky stars flying out to London last Thursday night, the first day of the SAA strike. We had booked BA. It’s much cheaper than flying SAA.

The British carrier was packed to the gills: there wasn’t a seat to be had from first-class to business and economy, said ground staff. SAA passengers rebooked themselves or the national carrier had to make plans for its clients who had to be somewhere – which, when you think about it, is almost everybody with a booked flight.

But last week on leaving and this week on getting back, the strike was barely noticeable at OR Tambo, the Johannesburg international airport. The routes into and out of South Africa (especially the Johannesburg-London and Cape Town-London flights) are so lucrative that a range of airlines fly them.

To get to London, you can fly BA, Virgin and SAA. If you don’t mind a layover, Emirates and Qatar are good value, and so is Ethiopian Airlines, which is quickly replacing SAA as the continent’s leading carrier. In the absence of SAA, if you need to fly on our continent, you can use Ethiopian, Kenya Airways or RwandAir, in addition to SA Express, the regional airline which was not on strike.

And domestically, SAA’s market share of 56% has steadily been whittled down by Comair and its budget operator, Kulula, as well as by the nimble FlySafair, all three of which have proven wily competitors, even faced by the highly subsidised SAA.

Barriers to entry into the low-cost airline market are still high, but the strike this week was more muted than it might have been because there is so much competition. The SAA monopoly has largely been broken by competition. A study for the National Treasury showed how, when FlySafair entered the market, prices came down significantly as it created triangular competition. Eleven airlines hit the skids in the Noughties, according to the study, but Comair and FlySafair seem to be well-captained and sustainable.

SAA CEO Zuks Ramasia thanked patient passengers this week, but there may not be so many of those left. Last year, SAA bumped me off a long-haul flight, and when I tried to use the coupon they gave me to fly again, the customer services number rung off the hook for about an hour.

That was me gone. The competition is better and cheaper, and while I had been a patriotic flyer, believing that it was part of my national duty to fly SAA (plus the staff are really nice) – no longer. I guess it will be much the same with most passengers, disrupted by the strike this week or made nervous by the negative headlines and Numsa’s threats against passenger safety. You don’t play with flying and safety, and the market moves on, as I guess it did in great numbers this week.

Convenience went down; risk went up. SAA has eaten itself up. Unlike a strike at a factory or a mine, the audience or stakeholders available for disruption by labour are not static or captive in an airline strike beyond the single disrupted flight. Thereafter, you can move and my guess is we have. In droves.

The risk for SAA now is that the hard rump of its full-fare paying customers – corporates and individuals – are largely gone, and that its captive market of government employees and politicians remain.

If you look at SAA’s ticketing structure, politicians get a wad of free flights for themselves and families from SAA (or from taxpayers) while government departments get highly discounted prices. The free flights explain why Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan got a dressing down from the ANC caucus this week for his comment that SAA is not too big to fail. Who else will fly them with families for free all around the country? Perhaps a dodo.

There’s a big ideological free-for-all happening about whether or not SAA should exist. But the people who really matter – the paying passengers – have flown the cuckoo nest.

5 users thanked author for this post.

LuganoPirate, Jacob, GivingupBA, TiredOldHack2, transtraxman

[woodyhoo]

In reply to: Qatar Airways Q Suite

As a single traveller i have flown QR830 to Bkk several times in Q Suite.

For me it provides the best Biz Class and QR’s onboard product is unbeatable.

The cabin crew work so hard to make it a truly “business class” experience

It is a shame that once you step off the plane the service drops like a flying brick.

Being a Gold Member counts for nothing.

FF Privilege Club is a joke.

As is QR Customer Care.

[alainboy56]

In reply to: Qatar Airways CEO – QR may leave Oneworld

Appertaining to the above subject, I Have just done a OW round trip to Europe using, or should I say registering points on my QR Privilege card.
AUH-LHR back on B789’s after the hiatus with B772’s/ Air Belgium A343’s. Service typically BA – nothing fancy, nothing special – I would rate them as merely 4*
LHR-HEL on a heavily delayed AY (A320) last flight out in the evening – more than 1.5hrs delayed, which meant arrival time in HEL (scheduled for 00.15) was way after 01.30am. Wife would not come and collect me – had to take a taxi. —- AY were boring and with zero service on board long before Senor Cruz woke up to this idea. So now unfortunately one has two boring LCC service airlines running in parallel on LHR-HEL route and vice versa.
HEL-DOH on a QR A332 – a sublime flight – perfect service, attentive and very pleasant cabin crew, this time in BIZ (mostly men), but nonetheless as I always say, to quoin a phrase from an car advert and modify it …. “if only all airlines were as good as Qatar Airways” — They really are perfect, from the minute one approaches the aircraft for boarding, to the ground staff in the Lounges and so on. AAB really has indoctrinated a customer service which is absolutely second to none. Coincidentally whilst on this trip I read a Times article, or perhaps letters page with multiple complaints about BA mis-allocation of seating for families/couples etc etc……………….. or shall I call it ‘screw up of seating requirements for customers by BA staff/management/computers’ ????
DOH-MCT on a B772 just for 1.5 hrs, but with food and a tipple and also the entertainment system switched on with headphones provided. A perfect short regional flight.
All of this on One World and Mr Akhbar Al Bakers airline stands out head and shoulders above the other also-rans — if he wishes to leave I could not say I blame him, but he has equity in IAG (incl BA) I believe 19%, and he seems to get on with Willie Walsh (probably not the Spaniard), QR also have 9% of LATAM and also 9% of Cathay Pacific, so he can continue to influence through these equities rather than stick with the moaning whinging yanks and Aussies neither of whom wish to have any competition – full stop! So if he does leave OW it will be sad, but fully understandable
One last word, my last flight was back to UAE was via LX an A333 MCT-DXB, what can I say — cheap, no service, but did depart 10 mins early and due to no holding at DXB arrived on stand 30 mins early …………………. but then that’s when the problems start, GOD I hate DXB airport its horrible….. walk 35kms, then take a train, walk another 35kms, and then be met with a huge snaking queue for passport control where DXB does not recognise AUH ‘smartgate approved’ passports — AUH is another country in their eyes! Oh I really must do my best to avoid DXB — Best airport in the Middle East? ‘My Tais’ if anyone understands arabic!!

I saw another thread where someone was requesting this, so I thought I’d start a thread and keep updating it.

I’ll edit it to keep them in alphabetical order

American Airlines +44 (0)844 369 9899

Bangkok Airways +44 (0)1293 813961

British Airways +44 (0)3444 930787  

Delta +1 (800) 241-4141

Emirates +44 344 800 2777

Easyjet +44 (0)330 365 5000

Etihad +44 (0)345 608 1225

Lufthansa +44 (0) 371 945 9747

Qatar Airways +44 (0)330 024 0127

Ryanair 0330 1006 996

Swiss +44 345 601 09 56

United Airlines +44 (0)207-136-0582

Virgin Atlantic 0344 412 2414

5 users thanked author for this post.

KennyK14, Kjell, handbag, Montysaurus, mkcol74

[Gunit]

In reply to: Disappointed at Qatar Airways not honoring their word

Hi there.

You are not the only one who has been badly treated by Qatar Airways Qclub.

I lost my Qcredits and some miles as well as I upgraded a seat but was not given the upgrade even I was platinum member….

Now i have not flown with them long, but still have nearly 99,000 points/miles and I am waiting to spend them on an offer and then bye bye qmiles crap program…

But Qatar airways crew n and most services are good…. They just need to provide a better customer service at qmiles – they simply send universal messages instead of personal messages even to there platinum member as i was.

I am really disappointed with their bad and unreliable and no service program.

Now they will lose 16 members, I will assure them that, as what they did to me.

All my family members say bye bye to them.