Flight: QR1369
Route: DOH-CPT
Aircraft: A350-900
Flight Date: 17.08.2021
Flight Time: 09h 28min
Class: Business
I was quite excited to be able to fly on board the world's probably best rated business class, but unfortunately it didn't exactly met my expectations. So let's dive straight in to this adventure flying from Doha to Cape Town in a 3 years old A350-900 that took me in 9.5h to the most southern country of Africa.
The boarding already started when I arrived at the gate but unfortunately all business class customers where kept waiting because the business class bus didn't arrive yet. When nearly the whole economy class was boarded some of the business class customers got impatient and kinda rude to the personnel. After some arguing, most of the business class guests agreed that they prefer to board in an economy class bus (There is no difference between the busses in terms of comfort). When arriving in the aircraft a complete mess awaited us, as the business class customers arrived late there wasn't enough time for the crew to do the whole pre-departure service which made it extremely hectic. As well, the passengers where stressed and the whole atmosphere in the aircraft was unpleasant.
Anyways I went for some orange juice and nuts as a pre departure drink and snack and soon after, we climbed out of Doha on our way to South Africa.
Talking of the seat, the seat is really great, you of course have your full flat bed which isn't as comfortable as the bed in the new 787 business class of Qatar Airways, but it definitely is quite nice. The fact that I didn't enjoy the bed as much could also be because the condition the seat was in, it was quite worn out, it squeaked when I moved it and some of the storage compartments where not really operative. I definitely wasn't the first one sitting on that seat. A big advantage of the Q-Suite is the big amount of storage, you can definitely store all your belongings without any problem, which I really did enjoy! Also you can move the seat in any position you like, especially for eating, the seat is just amazing. The seat controls are really intuitive and if you're not that familiar with the seat, the crew is happy to help you out explaining every feature of the seat. Also you of course have the sliding door that makes your seat to an enclosed, small room with loads of privacy.
In terms of food, the breakfast was on that flight was pretty average, it didn't made it to the level of the breakfast I got on Korean Air in economy class in terms of taste, but it definitely looked extremely good. One thing though I really liked was the smoothie it was a really good starter into a day with loads of adventures awaiting me. After the eating I got to enjoy the beautiful landscape before descending into Cape Town where we arrived on time with a soft landing.
Finally, talking about the crew! The crew was really friendly but totally overstrained and the workload was way to high to handle. When ordering the food, I went for some wine and asked her (the flight attendant responsible for my seat) to make my bed as soon as possible. When I got my wine I reminded her that I'd like to sleep soon and would like to have my bed done. Unfortunately for the next 30min nothing happened, then I decided to press the "attendant call" button, well, nothing happened, for another 30min no one appeared at my seat even though the call attendant light over my seat was on. Then I decided to go to the galley and tell her that I want my bed now. She was really sorry but keeping in mind that I spent nearly 3000$ on this journey (3 Business Class flights) I definitely wasn't happy about the service even though I can imagine that it was quite stressful for the crew after departure. After this incident everything went smooth and I enjoyed it. One crew member I really liked was the Purser as he was quite present trying to give the passengers the best service they could possibly get.
To conclude the flight, I'd give it 3/5 stars, it was an awesome seat, awesome aircraft but the crew and food was just okay and the boarding was a total disaster!
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