The Achilles heel of the experience with Qatar Airways is the Doha Airport, especially for travellers arriving into Doha and not transiting. This airport suffers from being ambitiously big and the immigration into Qatar being overly time taking. At the end of my particular flight in which my travel was ending in Doha, the plane parked at a very remote terminal, from where it took me 30 minutes to arrive just at the immigration counter, with fast paced walking and the time on a train inside the airport. Then, at the immigration counter it takes up to a minute or more to process each tourist visitor,due to time taking face and finger scanning processes and langugage barriers if there are questions or information to be exchanged verbally with the officers. If several planes have landed at the same time, it is not unusual that one has to wait 45 to 60 minutes in the immigration queue. In short, the frustration of arriving at Doha takes away all positive vibe of the airline, as the airline and the airport are heavily intertwined and are marketed together.
The only thing that could have been better, is that the food trays get left way to long after a meal. We had a snack 8 hrs into the trip, and they left us with the boxes and cups for way too long. It is not fun being trapped in your seat unnecessarily
Our male flight attendant was top notch - wish I could remember his name. Boarding is never fun when I have to ride the shuttle to the middle of the tarmac and pull my carry on bags up the stairs to my seat. My knees are banged up and my shoulders give me pain, so the flight started off poorly. The seat leg rests don’t recline completely so that makes is difficult if not dangerous to get in and out of the middle seats. The entertainment system touch screens prevented one from seeing the options. They are old and the software needs to be updated. I was on six planes in the last two weeks and able to see the flight progress without any stress. Couldn’t watch anything else. I do like Qatar Airways, just not a fan of a few things.
Qatar Airways in-flight first/business class service is superior to any US airline; excellent meals are served on short haul flights such as between DXB and DOH.
Doha airport is huge , takes long time to reach gate .
Wasn’t allowed to continue with the purchased tickets because I hadn’t been able to go on the first scheduled leg.
The rows of seats in economy class are seriously close to one another making eating and resting just about impossible - there is hardly any legroom. Anyone larger than average size would have an incredibly uncomfortable flight. I had to basically share my seat with the lady passenger next to me as she was too big to fit into her allotted seat.
Check in desk people constrained by fear. Obvious typo on Uganda visa, even though approved, caused loss of flight. Something is definitely wrong with this system.
Staff was very friendly. There is no on board entertainment, but it’s such a short flight that it doesn’t matter. We also got a meal which was nice and unexpected due to the length of the flight.
Good staff, good intent, decent entertainment. More seat space would always be of benefit
Etihad seems to have a very strict luggage enforcement. I am a very light passenger compared to other passengers which are mainly heavier. I do not understood why airlines enforce the weight restriction so strictly. I was overweight luggage of 1.5kg, but am probably 10+kg lighter than the average passenger. Other airlines are far more accommodating. Poor customer service as far as I am concerned. If weight is such an important issue to an airline they should charge passengers by total amount of body weight plus luggage. To me just ridiculous.
Certainly! Here’s a more concise and refined version of your report, maintaining a polished and professional tone: --- Crew Check-In – Kolkata (CCU) The crew handling check-in in Kolkata was outstanding—efficient, courteous, and highly organized. Flight Segment – CCU to Abu Dhabi (AUH) A standard flight overall. Notably, only one in-flight meal option—a vegetarian curry—was available, which seemed unsuitable for a red-eye journey. The crew offered no alternatives, which was unexpected. Flight Segment – Abu Dhabi to Rome (AUH-FCO) Comfort improved on this leg, but service quality was average, falling short of Etihad’s premium standards. Crew attention was heavily absorbed by a difficult couple in Row 15 (port side), resulting in disproportionate focus. It was concerning that a steward had to personally return to apologize, a task better suited for supervisory staff. This highlights a development opportunity for supervisors Anna and Quashim in managing guest escalation professionally.
Horrible. After paying for my seats, I was cramped, had no overhead bin space, freezing as the flight had no temperature controls, the food was awful and served cold, when asked for snacks was told to wait and then never received any. I booked this flight as a partner through American Airlines but will avoid in the future.
Took a long time for boarding. The flight was comfortable.
Extremely bad food, they never gave our bags in time, the online check-in did not let us check in because we had Indian OCI not sure why we were given the option to check in then, because we couldn’t check in online we had to go in person and we were not able to change our seats and sit with our family
Should have had business class line in immigration. Food quality suboptimal
Used to Etihad employees are very rude and unprofessional but now better than before over all is okay now
The staff were wonderful but the seats weren't very comfortable for a bigger guy like me.
we were delayed from Athens to Abu Dhabi by an hour and a half, so I had trouble connecting the flight from there to Bali. It could have been done had they waited even 15 mins. There was another lady who was in the same boat. By the time we were half way across the terminal, they have actually already issued different flights for us to go Jakarta then to Bali. Not to mention the inconvenience of waiting over 4 hrs at the airport and the subsequent inconvenience, we did not arrive to Bali till after 800pm the next day, which means I paid for the hotel for nothing when I could have been there before noon the next day! There was little explanation. It was just as well I needed some assistance getting around, otherwise the 2 of us would have been completely lost! Not going to fly with them again!
Likes: on time departure, new plane Didn’t like:very poor quality food, very limited entertainment.no amenity kit etc.