Review of Qatar Airways flight from London to Doha in Economy

introduction

Welcome, everybody, to this new Flight-Report! Today, I will be taking you along with me to fly with Qatar Airways in economy class on the B777-300ER from London to Doha.

This review will cover the airport experience in London, as well as the onboard hard and soft products. I will only very briefly cover my experience in Doha, as I will cover most of it in my review of my connecting flight coming soon.

For each aspect of the experience, I will rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. The final score for the full experience is 77 out of 100. 

departure airport

Check-in

I arrived at a crowded Heathrow Terminal 4, some 3 hours before my flight. The queues at check-in were rather long, so I chose not to collect a physical boarding pass, instead, opting to use a mobile boarding pass from Qatar Airways’ mobile app.

The check-in experience gets a 6/10.

Security

Security was done in a large, crowded hall. The queues here were horrendous, and it took more than 15 minutes before it was my turn to put my things through the X-ray machine. Tragically, my belongings were pulled aside after the X-ray check, and I was left without my phone and other valuables for some 30 minutes before my things’ turn for the personal inspection. Turns out, it was because my iPad wasn’t removed from its pouch. Take note, I keep my iPad in a thin rectangular pouch, usually in my bag. For the security check, I took out the pouch and kept the iPad in the pouch, thinking it didn’t matter much since the pouch was very thin. Turns out, nothing satisfies Heathrow’s security staff.

This section gets a 2/10, so much time wasted! 

Gate Area

Our flight departed from Gate 6A, so it was a quick walk to the end of the terminal where a couple hundred people were crowding to board. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered some splendid views of our aircraft. 

^Views of the aircraft from the gate area

DEPARTURE AIRPORT SCORES: 4/10 

PRE-DEPARTURE

Flight information

Flight date: 09/06/2023

Airline: Qatar Airways (QR/QTR)

Operated by: Qatar Airways (QR/QTR)

Flight number: QR12

Route: London (LHR) – Doha (DOH)

Scheduled Departure Time: 19:45 (UTC+1)

Actual Departure Time: 20:22 (UTC+1)

Scheduled Arrival Time: 04:30 (UTC+3)

Actual Arrival Time: 04:35 (UTC+3)

Scheduled Flight Time: 6h45min

Actual Flight Time: 6h13min

Aircraft information

Aircraft Registration: A7-BEI

Aircraft Type: Boeing 777-3DZER

Engines: 2× GE90-115B

Line Number: 1384

First Flight: 02/03/2016

Aircraft Age (as of flight): 7 years 3 months

Aircraft Delivered: 24/03/2016

Seating Configuration: J42Y312 

PRE-DEPARTURE

Boarding

Business class passengers and OneWorld Alliance status holders were called to board first, followed by the economy passengers in groups. Not too long after, I was walking down the jet bridge into our 77W.

Welcome Onboard

Once onboard the aircraft, two flight attendants stationed at door L2 warmly welcomed me onboard. I walked through the galley and turned right, and walked through the rear Qsuite cabin, oh how I wished I was back in Qsuites! I then navigated through the forward economy cabin before finding my seat in the centre economy cabin, 29K.
I couldn't take any cabin pictures as the flight was packed, so here is a screenshot from Qverse, Qatar Airways' virtual reality site.

^QR 77W economy cabin (Qverse)

taxi and takeoff

We pushed back soon and the safety video was shown. After a 15-minute taxi, we lined up on Heathrow’s runway 09R for our take-off towards the east. The rotation was at 20:23, 38 minutes behind schedule. 

^Pushed back successfully

^Taxiing to 09R 

^Climbing out of LHR

^Selhurst Park, Croydon – home of Crystal Palace FC 

flight path

Now is a good time to take a look at our flight path. Our route out of London took us over the English Channel, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Türkiye, Iraq, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf before we arrived in Qatar. We cruised at 35000ft and 37000ft. 

my seat

As we make our way towards our cruising altitude of 35000ft, this is a good time to take a good look at the seat.

Seat Details:

Seat: 29K (Starboard-side over-wing window seat)

Seat Type: Slimline

Seat Model: CL3510

Seat Manufacturer: Recaro

Seat Pitch: 32”

Seat Width: 17.1”

Recline: 5”

Class: Economy (Y)

Cabin: Centre economy cabin (between doors 3 and 4)

Seat Features:

4-way adjustable headrest

Retractable bi-folding table

10.6” HD touchscreen IFE display

Universal Power Outlets

USB Sockets 

^QR 77W economy seats (Qverse)

^Seat-back & IFE screen

Some thoughts about the seat:

Seat Comfort: The seat was generally well padded and was comfortable. Headrest provides a lot of support. 9/10

Legroom: The 32” seat pitch was good, but when the seat in front reclines, legs get a lot more restricted. 7/10

Seat Storage: Seat-back pocket with extra smaller pockets. Enough for a traveller’s needs. 8/10

Recline: Don’t get me wrong, the recline was exceptionally generous, but the problem is, when the person in front reclines, my space gets very limited, and my face is almost pressed into my IFE screen. In short, the recline is so good that it’s not good. 5/10  

THE SEAT SCORES 7/10 

DINNER SERVICE

Approximately an hour after take-off as we cruised over Germany, the dinner service started. The cabin crew members pushed two trolleys up each aisle, one for the food, the other for beverages.   

^Dusk over Germany

The service started off with some light rice cracker snacks and a drink for everyone. A lot of airlines don’t do this type of services anymore these days, so I sure was delighted to see this happen. 

Then came the main meals. Each Economy Class meal is served on one tray, featuring an appetiser, a packaged bread item, and a dessert item, all served in a reusable clear plastic dish, as well as the main dish served in a single-use plastic tray. A bottle of water is also featured on the tray. 

May I just say that this presentation is just beautiful? The utensils also came neatly wrapped in the napkin, how classy.

Appetiser: Orzo pasta salad

This appetiser tasted pretty good with a slightly spicy kick of wasabi. My complaint would be that this appetiser was served way too cold. 7/10

Main: Penne pasta in Tomato sauce with Pesto and Feta cheese

You can never go wrong with the pasta option on board Qatar Airways. This particular dish was so tasty! 10/10

Side: Packaged bread

I still don’t understand why Qatar Airways doesn’t offer fresh bread rolls on board. The packaged ones are often disappointing, though this one was among the less bad ones that I’ve had. 5/10

Dessert: Apple Crumble

This was THE best dessert I’ve ever had in the skies. It was delightful: the apple paste was rich and creamy, and the cookie crumbs added a sweet crunch. 11/10

Beverage:

There were multiple choices for beverages available. I just went with a cup of Sprite; can't go wrong with it. 8/10   

DINNER SERVICE SCORES: 9/10 

AMENITIES

Amenity Kit

Qatar Airways offers amenity kits on these overnight flights, even in economy class. This paper pouch included a pair of socks, eye mask, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a pair of ear plugs. So well thought of by QR here.  

The amenity kit receives a 10/10 from me. 

Bedding

On this flight, a blanket and a small pillow was available at every seat. These were pretty standard, but did the job. 8/10.

Lavatories

Lavatories were clean enough, nothing too special, just standard QR toiletries featured. 8/10

AMENITIES SCORE 9/10

IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

IFE System

Each economy seat comes equipped with a 10.6-inch IFE Touchscreen and is of a pretty good quality. It features Qatar Airways’ “Oryx One” system provided by Thales, which is advertised to have over 4000 entertainment options, including movies, TV shows, music, and games. However, on this flight, not all entertainment options seemed to have been downloaded on the aircraft. Thus, I decided to just kill some time by playing monopoly on the IFE against the bots. Each game takes a couple of hours, and I had a lot of fun. 

^Monopoly win

IFE System gets a solid 8/10.

Onboard Wi-Fi

Qatar’s 77W aircrafts are equipped with what they call “Super Wi-Fi”. The connection speeds of this are relatively fast and have absolutely no problems with text messaging, though the Wi-Fi doesn't work over certain regions. Privilege Club members get one hour of free Wi-Fi, and a full flight pass only costs US$ 10.

Wi-Fi gets 9/10.

Onboard charging

There were 2 Universal Power Outlets at every 3 seats. USB sockets can also be found at each seat. 9/10 

OVERALL ACORE FOR IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: 9/10 

SLEEP

After successfully beating the bots at a 2-hour game of Monopoly, I decided to get some sleep. I chose to just recline about 15% of the way and settled in for the night. However, while I tried to sleep, the short Filipino man sitting in the middle seat, who had massive gorilla arms, kept knocking his elbows into my hip. As a result, I was brutally woken up too many times by a massive elbow smashing into me. It didn’t help that my knee space was quite restricted by the person in front reclining her seat all the way.
On the plus side, sound was not a problem as the wing did help muffle the noise from the GE90.

pre-landing

I woke up just as we started our descent into Qatar; it seems like I’ve missed the pre-landing snack service. This snack service consists of a hot pastry served inside a paper box, as well as a drink, and usually tastes pretty good. I had it on my connecting flight to Singapore, so I will cover more on it in the review of that flight.    

cabin crew

While we descend towards Doha, this is a great time for me to share some of my thoughts on the cabin crew of this flight.

Service speed (general)

Dinner service was slow as the flight was almost, if not, completely full. Can’t blame the crew, but service speed gets 5/10

Service attitude (general)

All the flight attendants were friendly, professional, and respectful. 9/10  

CABIN CREW SCORE 8/10 

APPROACH AND LANDING

^Khalifa International Stadium, home of the Qatari National Football Team

We were soon on final approach into Doha’s Hamad International Airport’s runway 34L, and we touched down at 04:35 local time, 5 minutes behind schedule. Oddly enough, the cabin crew member making the arrival announcement accidentally said 06:35 instead, though he immediately corrected himself. I don’t blame him: the sun was already up. 

^Final approach runway 34L 

^Taxiing to the gate 

arrival airport

The aircraft parked at the C gates. As we exited the jet-bridge into the terminal, instead of being sent through an upstairs walkway to the transit security area like it usually is, we were immediately released from the jet-bridge into the Departures concourse. Maybe there were maintenance works going on that made it impossible for us to reach transit security? Anyways, for the amount of time this has saved me, ‘transit security’ scores 10/10.   

^Hamad Intl. Airport - The Orchard

That’s all I will share about Hamad Intl. Airport in this review, will touch on more of it next time. 

my final ratings

Airports

Airport Experiences: 6/10

Hard Product

Seat Comfort: 7/10

Sleep Comfort: 6/10

In-flight Entertainment: 9/10

Aircraft Comfort: 8/10

Aircraft Cleanliness: 8/10

Soft Product

Dinner Service: 9/10

Amenities: 9/10

Other Service: 7/10

Cabin Crew: 8/10   

Less-than-ideal seat-mate: -1

FINAL SCORE: 76/100

CONCLUSION

So, that was a look into my economy class experience on Qatar Airways’ 777-300ER from London to Doha!

Qatar Airways does offer a solid product in economy class, though the misfortune at Heathrow, the fact that the flight was full, and my oddly shaped seat mate did slightly pull down an otherwise pretty good flight.

If you made it so far down, thank you so much! I really hope this review, as well as all my past and future reviews, can help you decide how you want to travel in the future.

Travel safe, and goodbye for now!