[Travellau]

I have a reservation and a confirmed ticket booked half a year ago from FRA -DOH – KBV (Krabi, Thailand) and back for April 2017 in Business-Class for 2 persons. It belongs to an offer with the new nonstop destination DOH – KBV which will start in December 2016.

Allthough QR-HP still says confirmed I can see on their booking-homepage that in April 2017 they do not offer anymore the NONSTOP-flight from DOH to KBV, only via BKK with a stop and aircraft change to PG and downgrade to Eco because PG doesnt offer Business-Class on their flights to KBV.

I talked to QR in FRA several times after waiting more than 1 hour in there line where they told me they know that problem but they have to wait of message from Doha.

Sent also an Email to QR in DOH, got an answer where they told me that they have raised my concern to their scheduling team and appreciate my patience while the reported the matter is under investigation. Still waiting for a reply for another week.

Does anyone know what to do? I can not understand that QR knows the flights will not be served and not going to inform travel agencies and customers. The communication is not like a 5star-airline. They still do nothing.
Regards
Travellau

[JohnHarper]

Travellau welcome to the forum.

My experience of Qatar as a Platinum card holder is that they contact you very quickly when anything about a booking changes and just last week I had two emails about a change in flight time. I couldn’t see what had changed until I looked at it against the original schedule and found that one of the flights on the booking arrived five minutes earlier than when I booked. That is consistent with my experience of using them monthly for quite a few years now.

That said I don’t think anyone who travels with them regard Qatar as a five star airline, they are a decent four star performer most of the time but they are not up there with Cathay and Singapore. They score highly on the business class seats particularly on the A380, A350 and 787 while the 777 is not quite up to the mark but still better than most. Food service these days is so so, I recently got off a flight very hungry as only a very poor breakfast was offered over seven hours and I was expecting a full lunch service given the timings. Food is definintely not of the standard offered by Lufthansa if you are used to that. The crew also do their jobs but suffer some of the meanest working conditions in the industry, many of them offer very robotic service, terrified of a complaint as if there is one they lose their jobs and as such their engagement is minimal. I find about one good crew member in every four flights and they are usually the Chinese ones who have a bit of warmth and personality. It’s also worth bearing in mind that their rest periods are some of the shortest and often not more than twelve hours from arrival to their next departure giving them nine hours in a hotel at the most by the time they get there and back and they certainly don’t get good hotels.

Everything is very Doha centric, all matters that are not absolutely routine are referred to Doha and there they do indeed wait in a queue where there is a body of staff who see themselves as rather too importand to meet the needs of passengers so it is a case of wait I’m afraid.

At the end of this year my travel patterns will change and I’ll almost certainly stop using Qatar, I have hundreds of thousands of miles on my account which I guess will be used on Cathay if possible as if it wasn’t for work in the Gulf and mostly in Qatar then this airline would not be on my regular list at all.

Oh dear, I’ve just criticised an airline that is not British Airways 😉

[Sam]

John to be honest I find your post on Qatar Airways absolutely perplexing. As a resident of qatar ( no I’m not qatari) and having many friends working as flight attendants on QR the conditions you are describing are quite far from the truth. QR staff live in very nice modern residences in doha. On their long flights they stay at 5 star hotels. Their shifts are nothing like you describe. Most if not all of those I know are extremely satisfied with their jobs. And if they weren’t nobody is forcing them to stay, so if they do I guess they’re happy with their jobs.

[StephenLondon]

@Travellau, I would wait a while to see what happens with QR. Look at their flip-flopping with the change to the AKL launch…they eventually came up with decent re-routing plans, but it took a while for DOH to come to some form of agreement.

I think some of QR’s issues are about the delayed delivery of the A350 (either by QR’s issues or Airbus’s). Research what alternative route you would prefer giving you maximum comfort, but via BKK with 24 daily flights between Bangkok and KBV, that seems to me to be the better option.TG do offer business class on their A330 flights to KBV from BKK.

[JohnHarper]

[quote quote=775556]John to be honest I find your post on Qatar Airways absolutely perplexing. As a resident of qatar ( no I’m not qatari) and having many friends working as flight attendants on QR the conditions you are describing are quite far from the truth. QR staff live in very nice modern residences in doha. On their long flights they stay at 5 star hotels. Their shifts are nothing like you describe. Most if not all of those I know are extremely satisfied with their jobs. And if they weren’t nobody is forcing them to stay, so if they do I guess they’re happy with their jobs.

[/quote]

Sam, let me welcome you to the forum as this is your first post.

I too have lived on and off in Doha for quite a few years though that is coming to an end.

I didn’t comment on the housing Qatar provide for their staff – which in the main they are required to live in complete with curfews and monitoring of their movements and visitors, some equate it to an open prison. This has been reported in the media before and it has not been denied by Qatar.

I speak only from experience of what crews have told me and I have seen, often crew are very guarded about what they say though two have become good friends who I will stay in contact with once I no longer spend time in Doha and I hope in some small ways I have been able to improve their lot.

The accommodation crews stay in are certainly not five star, no airlines these days provide that for their crews. Four star is common, Qatar crews get three star as a norm and some of those are not really up to the mark, it’s not appropriate to name hotels airline crew stay in for security reasons but again I have been told by crew where they stay.

Equally checking in and out of four and five star hotels around the world, I have never seen a Qatar crew but I have seen in the course of the last month crews from Emirates, Etihad, Qantas, Singapore, Cathay, Thai, Air India, Lufthansa, Air France, Finnair, Oman and Malaysia. Funny that among them there wouldn’t be a single sighting of Qatar crews but then they don’t get accommodation of the standard other airlines do.

It is also very noticeable that Qatar do not employ Western Europeans, North Americans, Australians or New Zealanders and several other nationalities (unlike Etihad and Emirates) among their crews. Instead they employ people who are pleased to earn subsistence levels of money and tolerate the conditions of employment that keep the costs low so you see mostly Indians, Chinese and some Eastern Europeans.

Accept it that for many low grade workers life in Qatar where there is little regard for the rights of foreigners and particularly low paid workers where on construction projects death is a daily occurrence there may be an opportunity to earn a little money but life is little better than slavery. I wonder how many Qatari cabin crew are employed on QR terms and conditions? My guess will be none.

[Sam]

Agaim John your so called facts can’t be further from the truth and actually what you have just written made me even more certain that you have never even stepped on QatarI soil. You are entitled to write whatever you feel but sadly as a resident of qatar, I know that the facts are quite the opposite. Open prison is so ludicrous it’s laughable.

[JohnHarper]

Sam, perhaps you’re a PR manager for Qatar? I’m interested in why you would be so defensive about a state that has lots of money but is built on slave labour?

There are many accounts like this one. Too many for them not to be true:

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/the-truth-about-the-luxury-of-qatar-airways/

This is of course one of the reasons Westerners are not employed at Qatar, they speak out.

Just how many Qatari crew are employed on cabin crew terms and conditions? None?

About others – plenty here and from very reputable sources:

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/qatar-abuse-workers-world-cup-2022-stadium-exposed-new-report

http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/qatar_en_web.pdf

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-labour-idUSKCN0WN1UC

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-worldcup-labor-idUSKCN0XS113

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32822016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/27/a-body-count-in-qatar-illustrates-the-consequences-of-fifa-corruption/

And of course anyone speaking out including the press are subject to arrest:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32775563

And as for Qatar’s recruitment policies, well you won’t find them recruiting Westerners as I said above but the are also sexist – after all what is wrong with Thai men? There are plenty of Indian men employed, are Thai men less subservient?

http://careers.qatarairways.com/qatarairways/VacancyDetail.aspx?VacancyID=118884

[Sam]

Again I can find dozens of articles about bad things everywhere. Do you want me to attach an exhaustive list of articles about racism in the UK, anti-semitic and islamophobic incidents ? I’m not a pr spokesman for anyone but boy do you have a grudge against Qatar Airways!!!

[JohnHarper]

Wrong, I have no grudge against Qatar Airways and indeed am a Platinum Card holder.

I’m not blind though to what I see in front of me either flying Qatar or in the streets of Doha and the places around.

I remain of the opinion that you have some role in Qatar PR and as a new single topic poster on this forum I would suggest I am right. Keep on going, you’re only fooling yourself.

[Sam]

Well unfortunately for you I have no association with Qatar Airways and this topic is getting tiresome. Bye.

[JohnHarper]

Blast, my troll detector must have been switched off! :-$

[Sam]

Better than grumpy sour faced octagenarians I think. What a strange mentality. Hiring beautiful women is sexist while hiring sour-faced rude staff is good business practice. Lol

[Travellau]

I asked a serious question, just got one good response of StephenLondon.
ALL THE OTHER replies dont belong to my topic. Please guys discus somewhere else but not here because it doesnt help with my Problem.
Regards Travellau

[WillieWelsh]

[quote quote=775606]I asked a serious question, just got one good response of StephenLondon.
ALL THE OTHER replies dont belong to my topic. Please guys discus somewhere else but not here because it doesnt help with my Problem.
Regards Travellau

[/quote]

Well as a new poster you sound more than a little ungrateful. I think that John particularly gave you some decent information before a troll diverted matters.

Perhaps you could play elsewhere?

[Sam]

Williwelsh being rude and calling me a troll is just as bad. Being patronizing doesn’t make you right. How about you playing somewhere else. You have no business in deciding who writes what got it?

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