I’m not a soccer football fan and have not been following the World Cup closely this year, but I know how important it is to many of you and apparently was extremely important to a handful of hooligans in business class on my Qatar Airways flight from Los Angeles to Doha.
World Cup Fans React Poorly To Match Onboard My Qatar Airways Flight…
My Qatar Airways A350-900 had Starlink Internet onboard with live TV. Many in the business class cabin were tuned into the football match. Morocco was playing the Netherlands and the Dutch team was leading 1-0 in the 90th minute when Morocco tied the game.
All of a sudden the quiet cabin was interrupted with a shrill and loud, “FU*K THIS! FFFFFFUUUUU*******KKKKK THIS!” Not just once, but several times over the next 90 seconds.
There were other hoots and howls that you would expect at a watch party and this noise was extremely loud, despite my wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
Morocco then ended up winning the game in 3-2 in penalties which led to another chorus of profanity and yelling.
Unfortunately, the flight attendants did nothing…though I guess I cannot blame them. What do you do when 5-6 people are all yelling at the same time?
It certainly disturbed me, but thankfully it stopped after the match ended and the next 12 hours were much quieter. I talked to one of the flight attendants later in the flight about why it was ignored and he just apologized and said that it was extremely inappropriate behavior.
I’ll share more details about the flight itself–which was otherwise lovely–later on.
With live TV proliferating onboard around the world, have you also ran into any similar issues on your flights that coincide with World Cup matches?
Doesn’t QR have a somewhat reputation/history of indifference/ignoring cabin incidents/disruptions ?
Not on board but flying out of LHR about 10 days ago, there was a guy travelling with his family, I think Italian, watching on the TV in the departures area. He got very excited a couple if times and yelled profanities at the screen, telling some players what they should be doing.
I can only imagine the “Viking Row” on a packed 777 after a Norway victory.
Oh well, you’re all so desperate to have wifi to allow your corporate slavery to continue unabated in-flight, so this is the consequence. And yes, QR does seem to have a history of saying nothing to braying morons of this ilk, in addition to the airline being owned by a family that’s been credibly accused of sponsoring Islamic terrorists. Stop giving them money, and stop giving them publicity.