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Spiderguy252

Hello, welcome to my fourth trip report. This TR covers a Qatar Airways flight on the routing MAA-DOH-KWI. There are 86 pics included.

The flight was scheduled to take off from Chennai at 4:40 AM. Thus, I had to reach the airport at an ungodly 2:00 AM!! There were serpentine queues in the international terminal of MAA. Outgoing flights included:

Emirates to DXB
Air India Express to CMB
Qatar Airways to DOH (My flight)
Cathay Pacific to HKG
Oman Air to MCT
Kuwait Airways to KWI
Air Arabia to SHJ
British Airways to LHR

It took almost a half hour to clear pre-check in security. Post that, I reached the check-in area. Today, QR was checking in at the counter on the extreme left. As I was waiting on the queue for check-in, a QR ground staff approached me and gave me a brochure, which included a map of how to navigate through Doha Airport. That was a nice touch. He also told me that today was to be a full flight, and the equipment would be an A321. (But of course, I already knew that! Laughing

)

The check-in agent was friendly, and excused an extra 6 KGs of excess luggage I had. When I mentioned that I was connecting to KWI, he attached an orange "Rapid Transfer" tag on all my checked in luggage, as my connecting time at DOH was only 35 minutes.

I cleared security upstairs, and waited at the gate area for my flight. It was 3:30 AM. There was nothing to do in the terminal, save for a tiny bookstore. This morning, there was a shortage of seats, hence many were left standing.

I discovered that there are small telephone counters at MAA, next to which you can view some airside activity. The only downside to this was that there were two layers of glass separating me from the aircraft. (The arrival pax walk down that corridor to immigration).

Some pics I clicked from there......

EK 772 to DXB. Delayed due to missing passenger. Note the CX 332 leaving for HKG in the background.

Air Arabia 320 leaving for SHJ.

At 3:40 AM, my flight arrived from Doha, bang on time. I got a poor quality pic of that. It was one of the 321s in the new livery.

Boarding commenced for my flight at 4:10 AM. Yes, this was a full flight. Unusually today, there were as many as 5 wheelchair bound passengers waiting to board. They boarded along with the F passengers (QR has no J on their narrow-bodies; clever marketing strategy). At 4:20, boarding commenced for Y pax. I got my window seat as requested during check-in.

View of the EK 772, still delayed. Why don't they just offload his luggage and leave???

We began pushback at 4:35. You can now see the BA 772.

We taxied to the runway past the empty domestic terminal, where a few Paramount E-Jets were parked and waited for a couple of minutes at the end of the runway. We began our take-off run soon after on this full flight and were up into the night sky.

A view of the airshow. QR, unlike EK, does not offer any camera views.

The safety card.

the seat pocket in front of me. Notice the bottle holder, just like those on the AI 77Ls. Unlike the 77L, there was no water bottle inside. Many pax were using it as a dustbin.

Bright little reading light.

The magazines offered. The first one is the entertainment magazine, followed by the shopping magazine, and finally, the Oryx in-flight Magazine.

The FAs, all of them Filipino, came around and offered cold towels.

Legroom offered. Quite spacious.

Outside, night changed to dawn.

The FAs came around serving breakfast. When I booked this ticket on their website, I had requested for an Indian Vegetarian meal, just to test their catering, although I'm a non-vegetarian. It had not worked on board previous KU, EK or EY flights. In fact, on the EK flight, I was handed a Kosher meal, with the FA stating that I had requested for that! Mad

I was to be proved wrong however. The FA looked at the passenger manifest, and handed me the Indian Vegetarian meal. Ah well, there's a first time for everyting...

It was quite good too!

The entertainment started soon after, with some Bollywood movie playing. I was definitely not interested, having been spoiled by AVOD, so i requested for a newspaper, and I was given a Qatari business paper, the only one stocked on board.

Everybody was asleep.....

....while I was reading the newspaper listening to music.

Somewhere over the Arabian Sea.

The Airshow again.

I found these nextgen seats to be very comfortable, even for a not so short 4:45hrs flight such as this. I would hesitate to try QR's 319LR to Stockholm, judging by these seats. One minor gripe though - the FAs could do well to close the window shades when pax are sleeping. I've found this to be a practise on other Gulf Airlines, but not on QR. Strange. Rolling Eyes

30 miles off the coast of Doha, we began our descent. The captain warned us of extrememly dusty weather outside.

the coastline in the distance.

The runway below.

Touchdown!

We parked at a remote stand, as there are no jetways in DOH and boarded the coach that would take us to the terminal. Welcome to Doha. Qatar Airways territory.

View of a GF 332, from BAH. Taken from the coach. This was the only non QR plane I saw during my transit.

QR 333.

Another QR 321.

Qr 332.

My 321 with the GF 332.

My 321 with one of the QR 332s.

A couple of choppers.

A couple of QR tails.

QR 332 being prepared for take-off.

QR 77W from BOM.

QR 332.

QR 332 in the special Asian Games livery. I think they left this one unpainted, unlike the others. (?)

The terminal at last.

This was a great bus ride, as we passed next to almost all parked a/c. So it's a bit unfortunate that DOH will be getting a brand new airport soon, one with plenty of aerobridges.

The terminal was very crowded, with transit pax arriving from everywhere in India. Those who were not transiting were directed to the immigration desks, and the rest of us past security. The KWI flight left in 15 mins, so I was allowed to jump the queue and board the coach to the a/c.

A quick pic from the coach.

It was another 321 I would be flying, but this time, in the old livery.

View from the stairs.

I thought this would be a light load, as there were only around 40 pax on board, so I sat at the left window seat (A) and clicked a pic of a QR 319. Notice the cool livery on the cobus.

However, the Jordanian FA came to me and said that I was sitting in the wrong seat, and that someone else wold be arriving. She was right, as a few pax from some south east Asian destination boarded the a/c then. (Bangkok maybe). So I sat at the right window seat. (F).

Another cobus. DOH needs a lot of these around, obviously.

Tray table.

We pushed back, as scheduled, and this was to be another full flight, with pax from India and south east Asian destinations. There were also a few Arabs on board.

The QR 319.

QR 320.

Engine View.

The QR 320.

QR 332.

Hang on, its QR everywhere.

We were following another QR 320 to the sole runway at DOH. I think it's the longest runway in the Gulf (?)

A couple of QR planes.

....And Prize catch. One of QR's 346! Very Happy

Fuel tanks.

Construction area for the new airport. (?)

Take-off.

This was the noisiest take-off I had experienced on a narrow body for some reason.

Leaving the coast.

We were soon served a snack. The bread thing on the left was superb!

There was some short programme playing. Since, this a/c was not upgraded, the seats were not nextgen, and the screens were smaller.....

....but this aircraft had it's own benefits - footrests!

There was no bottle holder of any kind on this flight though.

We flew our 45 minute flight through dusty weather.....

....and soon began our descent into dusty KWI.

Touchdown!

Kuwait govt. gulfstream, and a KU 320 and a 343 in the background.

"Welcome to Kuwait" grass carpet on the ground. Notice the 9W 737 at the terminal, from COK.

KU 772 at the far end, KU 343 at the near one, with a KU leased 320 in the middle, in the metallic livery.

Parking at gate 26.

The FA handed me a timetable as I exited the a/c.

Gate 26. (This image is not mine. I got it off the pane of Google Maps)

Going Home.

Overall analysis:

Check-in: 10/10
Punctuality: 10/10
Entertainment: 4/10
Catering: 10/10
Aircraft: 8/10
Seat: 9/10
FAs: 9/10

Total: 60/70 = 85.71%
Four stars out of five.

Thanks for reading.
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Yeah.

Nimish · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject:

Nice report and pics! What made you choose QR via DOH on this route? Would you fly this route with their narrow bodies again vs. say EK on a 77W?
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We miss you Nalini!