When I think about the best business class product in the world there is Qatar Airways Qsuite, then there is everything else. My latest 12-hour flight from Tokyo to Doha onboard a 777-300ER merely confirmed what I already knew.
Qatar Airways 777-30ER Qsuite – A Flawless Flight
I’ve flown Qatar Airways on multiple occasions this year, including an ultra-longhaul from Dallas to Doha on an A350-1000 and a 787-9 from Doha to Copenhagen. Both flights were wonderful, though my 777-300ER flight from Tokyo to Doha was best of all.
First, the service was over-the-top excellent. I feel like I hold Qatar Airways to a much higher standard than U.S. and European carriers, but even so, the service from Joey and Wattana (pictured below) was so excellent (attentive, gracious, prompt, kind) that I cannot help but to shake my head in amazement…and thanksgiving.
I appreciate a flight attendant who constantly patrols the cabin, notices when you wake up, asks if he can bring you a hot beverage or fresh-squeezed orange juice, and returns moments later with a hot towel. It’s classy. It’s Qatar Airways.
Service is on-demand on Qatar Airways so it is not like there were set meal times on this journey. But Joey and Wattana had this uncanny sixth sense to anticipate your needs.
Sure, using the flight attendant call button was encouraged, but it was not even needed because they were attentive enough to proactively see when you needed something without being obtrusive or overbearing.
But wait, there’s more.
The Qsuite business class cabin is among the most comfortable and spacious in the sky. The flight left at 9:55pm, arrived at 5:00am the next morning, and ended up taking over 12 hours of flight time. After my sleepless journey from Los Angeles to Tokyo on JAL then several hours in the JAL lounge, I was quite ready to sleep. And sleep I did…I slept incredibly well thanks to a soft velvet-like blanket, cold cabin, and individual air vents.
But wait’s there more.
I sandwiched two delicious meals in between my sleep. For supper after takeoff I enjoyed a lovely seafood appetizer, bowl of soup, salmon main course, cheese board, and a hazelnut tart with coffee to finish.
After a refreshing rest, I had breakfast before our arrival in Qatar, which included more coffee with a full English breakfast, yogurt with granola, a hot croissant, and fresh fruit.
I love catering on Austrian, Air France, British Airways, and Turkish Airlines…but Qatar Airways is the best.
CONCLUSION
I realize this may sound like a sponsored post for Qatar Airways, but it is not. Instead, I was blown away by what was probably the best Qatar Airways flight in my life in terms of excellent service. I also slept well and enjoyed two great meals. What a great deal...
Thanks for reading my first impressions post of this flight. I’ll have a lot more details about this flight in my full review including info on the full menus, pajamas, amenity kit, IFE, lavatories, and other onboard and ground services. For now, two longhaul flights in Qatar Airways Qsuite business class merely confirm that Qatar is the best of the best.
And go figure, they are profitable as well. Funny how that works.
They say they are. It’s a questionable assertion.
They have a home market with a critical mass of price-insensitive passengers. Furthermore, Doha is hardly a huge business or tourist destination, which means that a lot of their competitors have limited or no frequencies there, which in turn gives them the ability to charge a premium for offering frequent direct flights (so business travellers to/from Qatar will also be willing to pay for expensive tickets, even if they aren’t price-insensitive per se).
Having covered a good chunk of their costs that way, they can then offer keen prices to connecting pax while at the same time using good service as a competitive advantage. Given all of that, it’s not surprising that they can be profitable, particularly since they can afford to take risks safe in the knowledge that their shareholder will support them if they run out of cash.
So, pretty much like any airline, lol. With the acceptation that they not only turn a profit but provide an exceptional profit.
1. Every airline has a fortress hub, or two.
2. U.S. airlines got $50B in bailouts.
3. U.S. airlines can quickly file bankruptcy and restructure at will.
Your point?
The point is that a ‘fortress hub’ doesn’t automatically equate to access to a pool of people who don’t mind paying a fortune to fly with their local airline. TAP may have a massive market share of the traffic at LIS, but they are hardly able to charge a premium for flying you there nonstop (their low-cost competitors do the same, and foreign network carriers also have frequent flights to Lisbon), and the city itself isn’t full of oil and gas millionaires.
Qatar does NOT have a population large enough to support traffic ending or starting in Doha. 84% is long haul and regional connections. 78% of its population is made up of middle to low income foreigners in service jobs. Yes you see wealthy qataris with families in first and business class but it is not their main source of revenue. So do your homework, gather tangible data before throwing general comments
I was not making a throwaway comment- I was repeating what the manager responsible for the development of the Qsuite published a few weeks back on headforpoints.com! Pax numbers don’t mean much in this context – the revenue per seat mile is much lower for connecting passengers.
PM :
1-Revenue per seat mile for QR in business and first for passengers originating or ending in Doha represents only 32% of F and J revenue in 2019.
I can’t be clearer. All I can say is numbers and financial analysis speak louder than quotes from another blog.
*exception. and *product Long day! And correcting before I get lambasted…
We had a great trip in May.
Could not agree more. Recently flew Q-Suites IAD to DOH and back. Flawless service and you are right, there’s really no need for the call button because the service somehow manages to be both unobtrusive and proactive. One of the meals was so good that I said to the flight attendant, “You know, the food in Q-Suites is better than most restaurants on the ground.” She broke into a huge smile and thanked me profusely, and then I thanked her. Later I realized the utter absurdity of imagining such an exchange on any US or European carrier.
Those FAs work hard up front on Qatar, but they have an amazing attitude and obvious pride in their work. Positive vibes have such a multiplier effect on the whole experience.
I find that Austrian has pretty good food in J. But echo your feelings about other US and European carriers. I’ll be flying QR J from IAD in March, and i’m excited to try it.
I love Austrian indeed. The carriers I listed are all favorites, but I do maintain QR is another league.
Coming back from to the US just after new years and am hoping the DOH-PHL segment sticks with the Qsuites. Have been noticing lately they’ve been substituting to the MiniPod seat 2-2-2 configuration.
When I bought my ticket it showed as Qsuites ATL- DOH and now it’s showing those 2-2-2 seats. I’m hoping it changes back before my flight in October!
“When I think about the best business class product in the world there is Qatar Airways Qsuite, then there is everything else.”
I’d put ANA’s business suites on par with Qatar business class overall when in the air.
I’d say ANA comes close, but I love the on-demand meal service on QR, which is a big differentiator between the excellent meal service on both carriers.
When every J seat is special, none of them are. Clearly Matthew prefers Qatar over ANA, but the ANA The Room review was pretty glowing and the statement he made really discredits some amazing products (like ANA’s or EVA’s new business classes) and makes it seems as though they’re closer to Lufthansa or Air India or TAP business class.
While I’d be interested to see Matthew’s relative ranking of J seats, I also love that he doesn’t as that’s a bit pedestrian and there’s a lot of nuisance and subjectivity into any list like that. Saying that Q-Suites is not simply “the best” but also that second place isn’t even close competition seems a bit out of character.
How about this for how amazing QR J is. On a short-haul flight CMB-DOH I felt that I was flying F. I was in a minicabin by myself and the FA even knelt down to talk to me. Absolutely outstanding service!
I have never flown ANA’s suites, just their old business class. I thought the food and service were average. Also, during the flight one of the passengers changed his baby’s diaper on one of the empty seats. None of the FAs said anything (like, get the hell in the lavatory if you’re going to do that).
The moral of the story is, airlines seats are NEVER clean, even if they appear so. You have no idea what has been happening on them, plus they are full of farts.
I kinda forgot where I was going with this…
Will be flying the Q-suite in August, September, and October, Looking forward to it!
No matter what is said about Akbar Al Baker, he runs a near flawless Airline. And he wants his planes that way too. Airbus still needs to fix the issues that they claim are only “cosmetic”. Airbus Needs to please every customer. With aircraft costing millions of dollars I’d want flawless airplanes too.
QR is the best because all the others have at least one fatal flaw.
ANA have great suites, but the cabin is too hot and the IFE lacking (at least to a western perspective). TK have great food but the service is no way as attentive as QR. SQ have great food and service but seat is not as good…….and so on
I beg to differ on great food for SQ, maybe in first or suites yes but business is pedestrian at best. The have so many variety of high quality food and restaurants in Singapore yet they cater from a menu of none of them.
I beg to differ. I did note that Qatar Airways service staff are fantastic, to male passengers, and male passengers’ wives. But I fly alone for my biz and I do not get served, no matter how much I wanted my first drink or FT. It was a laughable matter until 2 male passengers decided to stop service for themselves by getting the male service staff to serve my first round of drinks first before getting them their 2nd round of drinks. He couldn’t ‘escape’ as the 2 different passengers are sitting at 2 different aisles. He went to take a cup of orange juice for me, which I had not asked for, I had wanted something else, and refused to hear from me what I needed. One of the passengers openly said, well, “at least it is still a drink”, to which many laughed. It was open joke. A lady hostess from economy class was brought in, to serve me, whenever she finishes her work in economy side. Note: there is a wife with her husband 2 rows in front of me. She did not have problems, being served after her husband.
OK…so, their B-class is stellar. Their economy class is best suited for abridged-dimensional adults! Seriously, even a local carrier, Southwest or American airlines, has more room per seat and double armrest for two adjacent passengers on a 4hrs flight from LA to Chicago…and this was from BKK to Doha…inch was 7:15 hrs flight. That’d how they make their money!
get rid of the masks for the employees. Not looking forward to seeing them on an upcoming Qsuite flight. Saw it before last year….once is enough.
Flying JRO-DOH-LAX in a couple of months. This will be my second QSuite flight, which was amazing. Super excited.