Travel
FLIGHT REVIEW: Qatar Airways (A330-300) Economy from Lagos to Doha
I was excited to try out Qatar Airways for the first time travelling from Lagos to Washington DC via Doha. Having flown 10 other airlines over the past 3 years, I was interested in finally testing out Qatar’s flagship global airline.
Qatar Airways is the first Middle Eastern carrier that I have flown. I have always wanted to fly with the top 3 middle eastern carriers: Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, but this time, Qatar Airways was chosen thanks to the guys at Travuhub, I was able to book the flight to Washington DC for a little over $800 (return) in January on Economy flights from Lagos.
Flight Summary
- Trip: LOS-DOH
- Airline: Qatar Airways
- Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
- Flight Number: QR 1408
- On time departure: yes (2.45pm GMT+1)
- On time arrival: yes (11:25pm GMT+3)
- Miles: 3434
- Flight time: 6:30
- Seat: 20A
- Class: Economy
Check In:
While online check-in was supposed to open 24 hours prior to my departure, it didn’t seem to be working. When I clicked the “Check In” button on the Qatar Airways app, it just didn’t work.
I had to go to the airport to do the check in and bag drop off.
Lagos Airport:
I was worried about arriving at the airport just 90 minutes prior to departure due to the fact I left home late and used an UBER to get to the airport, I found myself at immigration with 60 minutes to go — that’s 40 minutes until boarding.
Nothing at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos works. The Air-conditioning, lights, etc is a total mess and needs a total rework or redesign with also everyone who works at the asking or demanding bribes.
Boarding:
Boarding was scheduled for 45 minutes prior to departure. Despite the aircraft seemingly being ready well before this time, the gate agents waited until that time to let us begin. At 35 minutes to departure, the gate agents boarded special assistance passengers and families, followed by business-class passengers and elites were welcomed. Finally, economy passengers began boarding at 25 minutes prior to departure. By 10 minutes to departure, all passengers were seated and the aircraft pushed back three minutes early.
Cabin and Seat:
The version I was travelling on happened to have the 2-3-2 seating arrangement, a very hard seating arrangement you find on most airline.
In-Flight Meals:
Qatar Airways serves five star meal even on economy class. There were two meals served: lunch and light snack. Lunch was deliciously looking Rice with chicken curry, bread, salads and a cake creamed desserts with an ice cold cup of Coke. For light snack I had a hot chocolate cake, chicken pie.
In-Flight Entertainment:
Qatar Airways’ impressive in-flight entertainment is called ORYX ONE. Their AVOD service allows you to choose up to 3,000 movies, TV shows, songs, games and plenty more. The 9 inch monitor screen is quite small but but still you can enjoy flight with it.
In-flight entertainment similar to other airliners. Touch screen monitor and a button-type remote controller all attached into the seat in front of me. It is much faster to touch navigate the menus directly on the screen rather than pressing on the controller.
I was able to watch the Chelsea vs Arsenal match live and keep up with all the latest international news on CNN, BBC World and Al Jazeera.
There are about 8 live TV channels to watch on board.
- CNN
- BBC World News
- Al Jazeera English
- Sky News Arabia
- Sport 24
- CNBC Europe
- NHK
- Euro News
In-Flight Connectivity:
Another cool feature is the in-flight wifi connection available in both classes. Simply turn your smartphone on “flight mode” and connect with the “OnAir” wifi.
Open your browser and you’ll be automatically lead to the menu displayed on the right.
To purchase a certain plan you require a credit card or a voucher. For free you will get a data volume of 10MB which is enough to use your WhatsApp but probably not to spend all flight on YouTube.
One of the impressive ORYX ONE features personal in-seat telephone with SMS and e-mail functions. But this feature is limited to fleets with wi-fi on board.
It’s a cool feature if you wanna check your emails or update your friends on your messenger.
Real-time flight instrument datas. From heading indicator to turn coordinator, it was pretty exciting for me as a pilot.
After the 6 hours of flight, I have finally landed in Doha with a thank you message to all passengers through the monitors.
Overall Impression:
Being the first time on board Qatar Airways flight, from the seats to the IFEs, everything were flawless. The meals were set to my taste. Experiencing different kinds of in-flight services, I have learnt why this airliner is one of the top in the world. Similar to all other companies, flight attendants are well trained and passionate on their duties. Unless you have tried it, you would not understand why this company is a 5 star airline.
Overall, I’d be very happy to take this flight again.
MY VERDICT
- Seat : 8/10
- Food: 8/10
- Service: 9/10
- Inflight entertainment : 8/10
- Cabin: 9/10
- Overall experience: very good: 8/10
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