Review of Qatar Airways flight Doha → Bangkok in Economy

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the second report of the following 9 covering my latest trip to South-East Asia:


01.02 WAW-DOH, QATAR AIRWAYS - A320 - https://flight-report.com/en/report/30559/Qatar-Airways-QR-262-Warsaw-WAW-Doha-DOH
02.02 DOH-BKK, QATAR AIRWAYS - A380 - you are here
05.02 BKK-REP, THAI SMILE - A320
07.02 REP-KUL, AIR ASIA - A320neo
09.02 KUL-SGN, MALAYSIA AIRLINES - B738
12.02 SGN-PQC, VIET JET AIR - A321
16.02 PQC-BKK, BANGKOK AIRWAYS - ATR72-600
17.02 BKK-DOH, QATAR AIRWAYS - A380
17.02 DOH-WAW, QATAR AIRWAYS - A320

My previous report ended with my arrival to Doha at 4:30 local time after a 5 hours 30 minutes long night flight from Warsaw. We had more than 15 hours before our next flight to BKK departing at 20:20. Such a long stopover was chosen deliberately to be able to see a new country, a new city and a new airport. It appeared to be harder than we expected but I don't regret it and writing this report with -15 degrees Celsius outside I would be delighted to spend one more day in warm and sunny Doha even if it included a sleepless night :)

A DAY LONG STOPOVER IN DOHA

Let's start with some bonus as we had a really nice day in Doha. Visas are not required anymore but the queues to immigration are very long, especially when more flights arrive at the same time and more passengers with long stopovers want to exit the airport to see the city. We spent about an hour in the endless queue to passport control with people from all the parts of the world - quite an interesting (as far as you can make some observations) but mostly tiring experience. Then we headed to the bus stop to take bus number 777 (easy to rember if you are an avgeek) to get to the city.

My first picture taken in Doha, you can easily understand where we are.



The bus takes us first to the oldest part of Doha - Souq Waqif but as it is early in the morning and there is almost no life there, we just have a cup of coffee to wake up a little bit and decide to take the 777 bus again to West bay to see the skyscrapers.



This giant pearl monument looks nice from the bus but as you get closer you discover it is rather ugly…



Doha city center known also as the West Bay is also deserted on Friday morning that traditionally is a day off in Qatar



As there isn't much to do here, we take the 777 bus again using our unlimited 24-hours ticket and head to the Pearl Qatar - an artificial island with luxury appartments and marinas (this is where I have the first sleeping crisis and consider seriously to lay down somewhere under one of the palm trees and close my eyes just for a minute…)



Then we come back to West Bay (another bus ride - the distances here are huge and there are not many pedestrian facilities as for the most part of the year it is too hot) and decide to walk along the Corniche promenade to Souq Waqif. It seems far but we have a very nice walk that takes us less than an hour and helps not to fall asleep…

View of the West Bay from Corniche



Souq Waqif during the day is full of people, shops, cafes and restaurants. Despite all Doha being rather new and modern, this is the "old town" but it's far too clean for a typical arabic souq. Anyway the place has some nice atmosphere, we had some decent arabic food there and saw for the first time in our lives small rabbits wearing skirts…



This is how it looked in the 1960s



Time to go back to the airport or maybe not yet but the other option is (this time I'm not joking) to fall asleep somewhere on the street. We decided that sleeping somewhere close to departure's gate at the airport will be much safer and take once more the 777 bus that arrives to HIA (Hamad International Airport) in 20 minutes.




I must say I liked this airport from the very first moment I arrived here in the morning. It is huge but it doesn't seem overwhelming and its architecture and the light made me feel really good there.




Immigration this way is very fast, so is the security check and shortly we are able to see the fameous teddy



I always wondered how it looks from the other side, now I know



The airport is huge, so to make access to concourse DEF easier a special quiet train runs obove our heads



We depart from a B gate, so no need to take the train.

THE FLIGHT

The gates in HIA are closed constructions that open usually one hour before the flight, your boarding pass and passport are checked, then you proceed to a waiting room and wait for a call to board the aircraft. In case of A380 boarding a very important thing are the seating zones that indicate your boarding time: passengers are asked to board the plane by gate seating zones and not by their seat numbers.

Before the gate opens I manage to get some sleep. It is rather difficult to sleep in seating position on a rather uncomfortable seat but I'm so tired I tend to forget I'm going to fly the A380 in a while.



Finally we get to the other side and take seats in the indicated zone while the pre-boarding continues.



I try to take a photo of our aircraft but the gate is constructed this way that I can only catch the tail section



It's not getting any better while in the jetbridge as the windows are covered with adhesive tape put here to stop the sun.



The cabin is dimmed even during boarding (strange) so the photos I take during making it to my seat are all worth nothing. It's better when we finally reach our seats. One thing is certain now: the aircraft is huge. It may not be as along as the 777-300 but the cabin is so spacious! The space between my window seat and the window itself is great even though I will soon discover it makes sleeping difficult as you can't use the "wall" as head rest.



So here I am, in the aircraft of my dreams thinking only how sleepy I am. I feel angry at myself I'm not really enjoying it as much as I should but I explain to myself I'm simply tired and will try to "experience" the superjumbo more on the way back. Before I fall asleep I make a short inspection of the seating facilities.

The legroom is much better than on the A320, so is the screen



The big/small and incredibly deep window




The amenity kit showing our destination



The overhead pannel



Maps seem to be much better than on the A320



Safety video dispayed on the PTVs



The safety card




And something I was waiting for: the cameras. Unfortunately not so useful at night, anyway much better than the ones I remeber form Aeroflot 777-300.



And now something strange happens: for the first time in my life I'm so tired I fall asleep while we taxi to the runway. I wake up when I hear my boyfriend's voice: are you going to sleep through your first A380 take off? Oh yes, that would be a total shame. I force myself not to sleep and even take some photos and when we are already on the runway I discover it's not me who is going to sleep during take off but as he is not such an A380 enthousiast I don't wake him up.



A few minutes later I hear someone has just woke up unaware we are already airborne: "are we going to fly over the West Bay? Do you think it's illuminated as they show it on the screen?" Uups…. "Oh yes, it actually is, we've flown it over like 10 minutes ago" "What???" "Yes, we are somewhere over the Gulf right now". Luckily I'm not blamed too much for not waking him up :)



Menus are distributed as soon as we reach our cruising altitude and the service begins over south Iran.



This time I choose the beef and my boyfriend takes chicken so we can taste them both and compare. In my opinion beef was better even if it didn't look too good.

On the tray: hot meal, noodle salad, cake, water, roll, butter, cream cheese and small chocolate. Everything was good, maybe not so good as on the first flight but ok. The opera cake was definitely the best part of this meal.



Here is the chicken option



Finally there is time to sleep. I wake up somewhere over India to discover we are in turbulence area and the aircraft is shaking. I wonder how strong must be the turbulence to make such a beast shake like this. About an hour and a half before arrival the second service with "light refreshments" begins. It's the fameous "sweet and savoury pastry" in vegetarian or meat option.



While both meat and veggie pastries are good, the muffin is terrible and tastes like a sponge.

The map shows we are close and a distant sunrise can bee seen on the tail camera



Landing



The Suvarnabhumi terminal is so characteristic that it can't be mistaken with any other



Catering vehicles operating on both levels



Some cabin shots durink disembarking. Strangly the cabin is still dimmed. Friendly FA seeing me taking photos says I should make a tour on my flight back and see more. I will definitely will.



BKK is really huge, I remember being here for the first time 4 years ago and feeling totally overwhelmed. This long corridors to immigration and baggage belts haven't changed much.



The immigration is slow and takes more than 30 minutes. When we finally reach the luggage belts we discover that some of the bags couldn't wait for their owners and decided to leave the belt on their own



That's it for now. Thanks for reading and I should be back soon :)