Welcome to the fifth part of this series! This part will cover the first leg of my journey back to home (Sweden).
NOTE:
Some shots are taken with my phone and some are taken with my camera.
Part 1 - ARN-DOH (QR168 Qatar Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner A7-BCT) http://flight-report.com/en/report-11209.html
Part 2 - DOH-BKK (QR836 Qatar Airways Airbus A380-861 A7-APB) http://flight-report.com/en/report-11376.html
Part 3 - DMK-KUL (AK891 Air Asia Airbus A320-216 9M-AFI Semangat Harimau Muda livery) http://flight-report.com/en/report-11478.html
Part 4 - KUL-SIN (SQ107 Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-343 9V-STG) http://flight-report.com/en/report-11564.html
Part 5 - SIN-DOH (QR945 Qatar Airways Airbus A350-941 A7-ALD) You are here
Part 6 - DOH-ARN (QR171 Qatar Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner A7-BCM) http://flight-report.com/en/report-11693.html
Unfortunately time passes by and every vacation comes to an end. It was time to return to our home in Stockholm, Sweden after a few weeks of vacation in Asia. We booked a large taxi (Toyota Hiace) and left the hotel quite early as we had nothing to do in the city. We had already returned our 3-day tourist cards (MRT, LRT & Bus) earlier.
Malindo Air ad on a taxi, had to snap a picture of it.
The traffic got really bad shortly after we left the main city behind us. An accident had taken place in front of us which caused a massive traffic jam.
The ride went smoothly after we left the area where the accident had occured. I think a truck was involved in the accident.
We arrived at Terminal 3 of SIN 45 minutes after we left our hotel.
Terminal 3 at Changi was massive and beautiful. The QR check-in desks wouldn't open for a while so I decided to explore the terminal to burn some time.
Food court.
Didn't realize this shot of the FIDS was blurry, I apologize for that.
SG50 exhibition in T3.
Soon the check-in desks opened and we lined up behind a Swedish man. He later realized we spoke Swedish and asked us if we were going to Copenhagen or Stockholm. We told him we were headed for Stockholm. He was together with his spouse who seemed to be of Malaysian or Indonesian origin.
Next stop was immigration.
Immigration was quicker this time around, the process was quite smooth compared to last time.
Me and my mom decided to eat something light at BK located at the far end of the food court after clearing immigration.
Our assigned gate was gate A15. My family decided to take the Skytrain to our gate even though I would have preferred to walk.
Some nice and comfy seats next to our gate, my sister and my mom decided to rest here.
Meanwhile, me and my dad charged our phones at one of the charging areas.
I later walked around and tried to do some spotting. That didn't really work due to the sheer amount of reflection.
Shortly afterwards we were allowed to enter the seating area prior to boarding.
Flight information:
Airline: Qatar Airways (QR)
Flight number: QR945
STD (Scheduled time of departure): 02:30
ATD (Actual time of departure): 02:52
STA (Scheduled time of arrival): 05:05
ATA (Actual time of arrival): 04:38
Scheduled flight time: 7h 35 minutes
Actual flight time: 6h 46 minutes
Origin: Singapore
Destination: Doha
Route: SIN-DOH
Aircraft: Airbus A350-900 (A350-941)
Registration: A7-ALD
Boarding was announced at 01:47 with all priorities respected.
Wing view from seat 24K.
The state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment onboard this QR A359, also found on the QR A388.
The handset/controller.
This particular IFE offered a good amount of movies, programs etc. The touchscreen was very responsive, identical to the QR A388. It even had a camera view which I'll show later.
The seat was comfortable and the seat pitch was great, much better than the QR 788 that I've flown on previously.
SQ B77W pushing back.
Overhead bins. The atmosphere in the cabin together with the mood lighting was very nice IMO.
Your usual headphones when flying with QR, found in the seat pocket behind every seat.
The tail camera view! A very nice feature.
These LCD panels replaces the standard seat-belt signs. Texts with information also appear on these.
We pushed back and began our taxi to the active runway for departures at 02:30 AM local time.
Cathay Pacific B773 in sight.
Oman Air A333.
Departure from Singapore-Changi.
Listening to music a few minutes after departure. Most of the passengers were sleeping at this point.
The load factor on today's flight was approximately 85% in economy. Most of the passengers were Europeans with 10-14 Swedes onboard.
Mood lighting in action.
My good friend from Germany managed to track this flight as well! He managed to track the entire flight from start to finish. Thank you for tracking my flight! We departed from Singapore at 02:52 AM local time as you can see on the screenshot. All subsequent screenshots used in this FR were provided by my friend.
Your standard blanket when flying with QR, found on every seat upon boarding.
This flight was quite uneventful, which wasn't surprising considering it was a red-eye flight. Soon my parents fell asleep and me and my sister were one of the only ones awake. I decided to take some pictures of the moving map offered on this IFE, it was very similar if not identical to the moving map on the QR A380.
The first snack service began 35 minutes after departure. Most of the passengers were asleep at this time so not a lot of people ate this snack. The crew told us it was a chicken sandwich. However upon further inspection I found out this was the exact same sandwich offered on my previous QR flight from DOH to BKK. The crew on that flight told us it was a vegeterian snack. The contents on this one were the same and tasted identical to the previous one. OJ and water was my drink of choice.
The sandwich didn't taste good in my mouth, but it was edible. The dessert or cake next to it was decent, a bit too sweet for my taste. The flight attendants serving our aisle weren't quite friendly. They offered ZERO smiles throughout the flight. They were very robotic but did their job (with no smiles).
The handset. You could control the IFE, watch the moving map, play games and a few more things on this device like I've mentioned before.
Pitch black outside.
The IFE also had a USB port, port for the provided headphones and an a/v port.
I used the USB port to charge my phone and watched the moving map on the handset whilst doing other things on the main PTV.
I went to the lavatory 30 minutes later. Here are some shots of it for you guys.
I quickly fell asleep after this picture was taken and slept for a good 4 hours.
Zzzzzz……
Zzz….
Zzz….
I woke up 4 hours later to this meal, I've never slept so well on a plane before. It felt like I had got 8-9 hours of sleep. I had absolute no sign of fatigue after I woke up which has never occured before. Anyways there were two options for the breakfast service which was made 1h 30 minutes prior to arrival, pancakes or omelette with chicken sausage and potato. I went with the latter. The meal also consisted of yogurt, a small croissant, a fruit salad and packaged OJ.
I'm not a big fan of omelette but this one was pretty decent. The chicken sausage was decent in the taste department, it was quite juicy as well which I liked. The small pieces of potato were also really good to my surprise, they were juicy with a good amount of taste. I had consumed the same yogurt in SIN before so I knew how it would taste like. It was decent but there are better yogurt brands IMO. I would have preferred Yoplait instead (tried it in KL & SG). The fruit salad consisted of a few different fruits but I only tried the pieces of pineapple. The pieces of pineapple were really good though. The croissant was okay, there's nothing more to write about it. Not the best meal but pretty decent, I don't like to eat breakfast on planes anyway.
Sunrise.
Soon we initiated our descent into Doha-Hamad International Airport.
Descending into DOH.
Lining up with runway 34R.
This screenshot and the previous pic were both taken at the same time. Wing view by me and screenshot by my friend.
Landing on runway 34R at 04:38 AM local time.
Taxiing to our gate.
We parked next to this 787.
We had a long layover at DOH this time, our next flight to Stockholm would depart at 14:00 (2 PM) local time. We decided to have a look at Doha so we went to the arrivals area.
The immigration queues consisted mainly of Arabs, Bengalis and Indians which wasn't surprising. There were maybe 5-8 Europeans out of 300+ people.
Immigration was rather smooth, my family decided to visit one of the bathrooms while I waited outside with our handbags.
A good amount of the staff here were Bengalis and I could hear them speak in Bengali (Bangla) with each other.
My dad later asked one of the workers (in Bengali which was very convenient for my father) for some basic info about Qatar and Doha. We headed to the taxi stand shortly afterwards.
In a taxi to Doha.
The ride to the city took approximately 15 minutes, I guess that's it for this FR. Thank you for taking your time to read it :).
SHORT TOURISM BONUS:
Thank you for your beautiful FR my friend! :)
The Termimal 3 at SIN is really beautiful! Seems you had a great experience with QR. I really like the A350!! It's so nice! If I had a choise between a A350, 787 and A380, I would choose the A350, even though you told me that the A380 is more comfortable. But somehow I prefer the A350 haha.
DOH is also a nice airport. Like the modern building.
Great bonus pics of Doha!! Like them!
Tack!!!! :)
Thank you for your nice comment my friend!
Everything was great with QR this time minus the crew, which was a shame. Yeah, the A350 is an amazing plane to fly on! It's comfortable, spacious, modern with state-of-the-art technology. Actually both cabins were almost identical when it comes to seats, legroom, IFE etc. The major differences are that the QR 380 cabin has a lot of space between the seat and the window and the ceiling is much higher making it more spacious. The A380 was also much quieter. The LCD panels instead of the usual seat-belt signs in the 350 is also a difference, otherwise they are quite similar inside.
Yep, it's very clean and modern even if I'm bored of the airport as I have transferred through it so many times.
Thank you :).
Thanks for this report,
SIN is huge and comfortable airport.
A350 is really beautiful plane.
Moodlight is perfect.
handset is so modern comparing to those in B777W
I think it's good to spend one or two days in Doha but not more. It's not a perfect touristic place (same problem for Dubai).
See you
Thank you for your nice comment :).
Yes, SIN was an amazing airport to fly from!
The QR A350 is a great plane to fly with. It's comfortable, spacious, has a great seat pitch, latest IFE, mood lighting and it features the latest technology.
I have to agree here, Doha was quite boring from my experience. There wasn't much to do there, there were quite a few tall buildings with South Asian workers everywhere on the streets and that's about it. Dubai is more tourist friendly and there is much more to do there from my experience, Doha wasn't the same. I think Doha will change in a few years though, they haven't finished with all of their construction projects yet.
Thanks for this report aboard the A350!
At least you got to see SQ50 (both the display and the plane), even if it was in the darkness of the early morning (or late at night depending on how you look at it). It's amazing how crowded SIN always is. When we left BOS at 2am, it was a complete ghost town.
Red-eyes are hard to judge crews on. They really don't want to be too present in the cabin since most people are trying to sleep, but if they didn't smile at all, then that's another story. And they lied to you about your snack box contents, tsk tsk.
The IFE and seat again look very strong on QR in Y. A very consistent hard product nowadays in their fleet. I normally am not a huge fan of mood lighting, but the soft purple QR uses is pretty easy on the eyes.
The breakfast offering is meh, but at least you got some exotic Japanese yogurt (meiji). At least you also got a snack box on this flight, which is more than what you'll get heading back to ARN.
Really nice dawn shot of DOH at the end. You can tell the economic disparity in middle east in your bonus, old fishing boats sitting in front of modern skyscrapers.
Thank you for your nice comment!
Yep that's true! That's one aspect I like about many airports in Asia, for example most intl flights depart from DEL at night making it the busier period of the day.
That's true but I've flown on quite a few red-eyes before with crews that were decent to outstanding but never experienced something like this. I understand they want the passengers to sleep but they could still offer one or two smiles throughout the flight.
That was the best part about flying on an A350, new, clean, modern and comfortable. I don't think I can say the same about their A330s that I flew on to/from Dhaka.
Didn't know Meiji was Japanese, I consumed a lot of their products in Thailand every day. It's pretty understandable considering this flight is 1h 25 minutes longer (on paper) than DOH-ARN.
Thank you! Damn, you got a solid point over there! I didn't think about that tbh.
Thanks for sharing this continuation of your trip.
SIN is a great airport and your flight was a comfortable one. I think the meal was adequate for a flight of this length.
Nice pics of your stay in DOH.
Thank you for your nice comment!
Departing from SIN was a nice experience, flying on the A350 made the flight much more enjoyable. Meals were pretty decent indeed.
Thank you!