Round The World and other travels

Flight Log 6 : QR101

Dubai (DXB) - Doha (DOH)

Boarding was via separate jetties for premium and Economy passengers and I was first into the F cabin. My first thought was to be stunned by how nice it looked and my second was to realise that it looked very familiar - in fact, it was almost a carbon copy of what I must now call the old Cathay Pacific first class, in which I've had so many consistently good experiences. My jacket was hung immediately and I was offered a welcome drink by the friendly cabin crew, which could have been sparkling water, lemon squash or orange juice. I selected the latter. I was also offered a newspaper and picked out a digitally printed copy of The Telegraph. The cabin had 12 seats in total (3 rows of 1+2+1) and was fairly full. There were some very useful storage boxes for bits and pieces beside the windows. The crew then handed out nicely printed menu cards - a bit of a surprise on this short sector! -  and then offered me dates and Arabic coffee. I found this delicious and my small cup was topped up. Finally, there was a choice of hot or cold towels.

Around this stage, two Arabs installed themselves in 1E/F, only to be sent packing by the cabin crew after a lengthy argument - more of that shortly! At the scheduled departure time of 1130, ground staff were asked to leave and the doors were closed. We pushed back at 1133 and 1E returned, yakking incessantly into a mobile despite the cabin crew's pleas to desist and switch it off. Clearly this kind of self-important, anti-social behaviour is not confined to the West   Given the sequence of events, I'm assuming that 1E was ticketed in F and thought this gave him the right to upgrade his buddy   Orders for the in-flight snack were taken during the taxi. I chose Tandoori Prawns, although the alternative of Chicken Kebab also sounded nice. We had a lengthy wait at the holding point for 30L, accompanied by weird sounds of ice cubes falling from or within the air conditioning system, but eventually made it into the air at 1159.

The views were very hazy. I adjusted my watch to Qatar / Bahrain time (1 hour behind). The meals were served and very attractive they were too. I couldn't help noticing that the dressing for my salad was BA-style spicy lemon, which I know is not to everyone's taste, but I really like it.

The seat belt signs came back on a mere 20 minutes after take-off. We landed at Doha at 1140 local time and it took a mere two minutes to park at our stand.

Date: Mon 21 Apr 2008
Aircraft : A330-300
Scheduled dep : 1130
Actual departure : 1133
Scheduled arrival : 1130
Actual arrival : 1142
Cabin : First Class
Seat : 1A



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