Review of Qatar Airways flight from New York to Doha in Economy

INTRO

The trip to Yangon continues, where I will board the first long flight of the trip, a Qatar 777 to Doha!

JFK AIRPORT

QR704 to Doha, at gate 20. No security rechecks are needed for domestic to international transfers at T8 in JFK.

Walking down…

American A321neo and a Cathay A350 with an "80 Years Together" sticker.

More walking…

Um, it's probably better not to play news of a plane crash in an airport. There's a reason why some news stations (like CNN) had a dedicated "Airport" feed which didn't show any aviation accidents.

A sad display, representing fallen soldiers.

JFK is a great spotting airport, Alaska 737 with special paint.

And there's the plane taking me to Doha. A7-BAI is a 17.9 year old 777-300ER named "ام طاقه" (Umm Taqa, a district in central Qatar) delivered new to Qatar Airways in October 2008, and the plane has flown with them since.

Gate screen.

Boarding pass.

BOARDING

Time to board!

ONBOARD

Welcome onboard this "high-J" Qatar 777-300ER.

As this is a "high-J" 777, there are 42 seats in business class. This particular plane has the "Qsuite" product, a custom seat from Collins Aerospace. I flew Qsuite several times in the past, and it's a great product!

As nice as Qsuite is, I will be seated in back for once. Unlike a lot of long-haul airlines, Qatar doesn't have a premium economy class (unless you count those used aircraft with a premium economy section that's sold as economy), there's just 312 Recaro CL3710 seats in economy. Former QR CEO Akbar Al Barker claimed that "The economy class seat of Qatar Airways and the standards of inflight service is far ahead of premium economy", which I disagree with for the most part, except for maybe the upper deck experience on the Qatar A380 I had later on, but that's for a different report. Note the FIFA airline partner antimacassars. Don't let the good looks of the seats fool you, these are pretty uncomfortable seats! It's not necessarily the 3-4-3 configuration with 17.3" of width, but the padding that really sucks. Legroom was  pretty good, being 5' 11".

My seat for this flight will be 31A. I picked this seat since it was rated as a great window seat on AeroLOPA. A cheap headset, pillow, soft blanket, and amenity kit were placed on the seats.

A 10.6" IFE screen is installed on this particular aircraft. Don't let the old bezels fool you, QR has installed a modern HD capacitive touchscreen in place of the old, resistive screen (like on the Lufthansa A330 I was on back in 2024) that probably was fitted before. The system appears to be the Android-based Panasonic eX3 system. I will get back to the system itself in a bit.

The amenity kit had socks, an eye mask, earplugs, a toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste.

ENTERTAINMENT

Qatar's IFE system is called "Oryx One". 

The selection of movies is alright. Not as good as I thought?

The IFE map (which I think is Collins Airshow 4000) is dated (like the bezels). Notice how the plane depicted in the top view is wearing the old Qatar livery? The livery shown has a much bigger oryx that goes off the tail, which was the livery that A7-BAI was delivered with. The livery was changed in 2010 to the current livery. The 3D model has the updated scheme.

Older remote, with QWERTY keyboard and game controls in back.

Basic seat pocket contents, a safety card and a waste bag.

The headset. Not yours to keep, so bring your own with a 2-prong adapter.

Boarding is almost done.

A wet towelette is handed out.

Good thing QR installed air vents on their 777s.

DEPARTURE

Time to push back!

Safety video featuring Kevin Hart is played. Oddly, there wasn't a "please pay attention to the video that will be played explaining the safety features of this aircraft" announcement. After some more QR flights, this seems to be a QR thing, not a one-off mess-up.

I also noticed that QR has removed Hart's "thank you for choosing the greatest airline" line. I agree, QR doesn't blow the competition out of the water. In fact, I only picked QR since they had the least expensive fares from RDU to RGN.

Flaps lowered.

Goodbye America! See you next week!

IN-FLIGHT

There was a misbehaving child in front of me. This won't affect the rating, but she was really bothersome. She was kicking the cabin walls and all. That sock would be gone in little time.

The first part of the service began. Some small corn pieces and the smallest Sprite can that I've ever seen. I didn't realize that Qataris really liked tiny drink cans.

A nice view of the Atlantic.

Lavatory. Somewhat clean in the beginning, but a mess near the end.

Continuing on.

After that was picked up, the main meal was served. The options were either chicken schnitzel with creamy mushroom sauce or paneer makhani curry. The menu also mentioned a beef stew with green peppercorn sauce, but that probably ran out by the time my row was reached. That was served with a salad (which I don't eat), a toffee and chocolate chip cheesecake, and roll of warm ciabatta bread. Oddly, QR doesn't give you butter for the bread, like what I've encountered on Air Canada and Lufthansa. QR gives you metal cutlery to eat the food. Drinks (alongside the bottle of water) were offered after the tray was set, where I went with a decaf coffee. The chicken was a bit dry, but nevertheless tasty. The cheesecake was a great way to end the meal.

Still continuing over the Atlantic.

A Biscoff cookie was handed out to conclude the service. Unlike American and Delta, there was absolutely zero branding, and only one, tiny cookie, compared to the two big cookies on AA and DL. Is insanely small portion sizes a Qatari thing?

A look at the forward economy cabin.

WI-FI

Qatar has Starlink on their 777s, with free WiFi if you have a Privilege Club account. Enter your email (no password needed) and you're connected. I ended up using a VPN (Proton) to access Reddit since it's blocked on the WiFi.

Speed is pretty good for plane WiFi (without a VPN), better than the American Eagle E175.

Flightradar24 could be accessed fine with the VPN.

IN-FLIGHT (CONTINUED)

Time to (attempt to) get some rest! Notice the girl's Elephant & Piggie book, which would later fall into my leg area.

A very on-and-off rest, which was pretty short. That girl's kicking foot eventually smacked my hand. Of course, I immediately used hand wipes.

The crew then started serving a mid-flight snack, either sweetcorn and coconut cornbread or cajun chicken cornbread. I went for the latter.

Honestly, it was pretty bad.

The galley had some drinks ready.

Cruising through the night sky.

As the Middle East nears, it's about time for breakfast.

The choices were either a mushroom and tarragon frittata, poha with aloo bonda, or the choice I went with, bread pudding with chocolate drizzle. Another bottle was given, alongside some cinnamon swirl bread, jam, fresh fruit, and oat cream and mango crisp yogurt.

I was so excited to eat it to the point where I forgot to take a photo of the uneaten dish. It was amazing!

I got a coffee to go with the meal.

The sun is just starting to rise.

You can listen to Qatar's great and memorable boarding music "The Ascent" by Dana Al Fardan, alongside the two previous tracks that came before it on the IFE system, in the album Trilogy of The Ascent which in this case was under the "All About Qatar" secion of the audio tab. I will miss it, since Hans Zimmer is composing a new soundtrack for the airline, although the announcement was last year. There oddly isn't a "repeat one" option, although their latest interface fixes that (which will be showcased on the DOH-JFK leg).

The beautiful Middle East scenery has come into view.

Cruising over Saudi Arabia.

Lavatory smoke detector. A little odd that the signage appears to be an FAA type label, with a (presumably) USD price, and Arabic translation.

As the flight is almost over, connecting flight info is shown. Unlike Swiss (which uses passenger manifest to only show relevant connecting flights to those onboard), this is just a departures board. I mean, who else would do JFK-IAH via DOH?

QR826 to Bangkok, that's my next flight!

The Middle East feels unreal. Despite the war and all, the scenery is something else.

ARRIVAL

The descent has started. I also noted how I never heard a single word of Arabic spoken over the PA. The only time I heard any Arabic was the pre-flight Islamic prayer before the safety video. Pretty weird for an airline of the Middle East.

Ads promoting Hamad Airport and Qatar in general were played.

Flaps down.

Welcome to Qatar! First time I've heard people clap upon landing, probably because of that annoying girl.

Pulling in.

Seatbelt sign is off, people are standing up.

One last look at the economy cabin.

I wish I was here, but it wasn't in my budget.

Onto the jetway.

And into the Hamad terminal, where I will catch the flight to Bangkok.