Qatar Airlines

Our original plan was to take Qatar Airlines to Mumbai, with a 5 hour layover in Qatar. After the attack, we decided we’d go to Singapore instead. Thus began many hours of futile attempts to do so. Qatar Airlines is not available to discuss changes in tickets on Sundays. As a privileged westerner I have to say I did not appreciate that. We delayed purchasing tickets until we could talk to them at the airport on Monday, only to find out that the agents working there couldn’t do anything, we had to phone the number that only became available at 9am. Lame. We ended up keeping our tickets and purchasing a flight out of Mumbai separately since Qatar could only offer us a refund and last minute tickets are painful.

Beyond that though, they were awesome. It was a 4 and a half hour flight and we were served a full meal. It was good, I had beef and Derek had cheesy gnocchi, the chocolate mousse dessert in mine was fabulous. Also, free beer! And a large serving of brandy! We watched Wall-e and an episode of the Simpson’s in English and got mildly toasted. When we disembarked we were not allowed down the stairs and onto the waiting bus until the bus carrying first class had left.

We couldn’t leave the Doha airport, which was small and boring, so I can’t say much about the place. Attempts to get a 1 or 2 day layover to see what it was like were foiled. I am surprised at how much English there was. Every sign is written in both Arabic and English and all announcements repeated with a proper British accent. Not as many people wearing pyjamas as I would have thought, really if you have the option why on earth would you wear western clothes.

The flight to Mumbai was epic. We were standing in line and a man came over and asked to see our tickets and told us we were being bumped to business class. Considering how coach was, we got really excited, expectations that were exceeded. Derek had thought the first bus had left because it was full, but no, we got our own bus. We had a wine list. The meal was four courses and they gave us a menu.

(the appetizer. We had tablecloths)

The seats had a control bar that adjusted each part separately and you could lie down. Large personal TVs with 120 movies and even more sitcoms. I had port with my cheesecake. Derek got some drink that involved drops of liqueur on a sugar cube being dropped into champagne. The worst part about it was the flight was that it was only three hours.