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 ?
Has certainly been my experience. Had a brat… I mean boy … seated across from me playing games on his handheld the whole flight DOH to the USA at max volume with no headphones. Asked if they’d kindly ask him to wear headphones, no one did a thing about it.
I would’ve thrown a huge glass of coca-cola on his device. Fuck that, junior. They can try and bust you for assault. It’s assault to disturb the cabin during the flight.
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 please I wanna see Norway win just to see that and Norwegian and British Airways’ bet work out.
Noo they lost
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.
I work for myself…
Did you forget the “/s” again?
You forgot to take your meds again?
And let us not forget this is the airline/government that stripped searched & invasively examined at least 5 Australian women @ DOH ….
Much ado about nothing. Move on.
Excellent use of ‘bedlam’!
Was 90 seconds of disturbance over the course of a long-haul flight worth a second thought by you let alone an article?
Lighten up mate, it’s just a bit of fun
Nope, not at 12K meters, it’s not. And if they were drunk and disagreed in the aisles? Not a good idea.
I’m conflicted here. While I completely agree this should not take place ever on a flight (and I have personally complained about disturbances myself onboard), football might be the sole exception. I know in America sports you don’t live and die by, but in many nations around the world, football is literally life.
Perhaps a compromise would be for QR to put that “potential noise disturbances on this flight due to World Cup”. I know for a fact if Messi scored a bicycle kick in the world cup final and I was watching, I would certainly show emotion as would be impossible not to. Not because I want to, but because it’s literally my life from the day I was born. And others would follow. We are talking about an event where over 1.5 billion people watch one game Mathhew. 1/6 of the world. Compared to the NBA finals or Super Bowl which is 120 million ish.
Just a penny for a thought. I can see both sides here but only for football. Legality wise and all, you are 100% correct here just wanted to point out that to many people, watching your team go down 1-0 has the same emotional shock as losing a loved one. Genuinely in that split second. Do the research surrounding Cortisol release it’s scientifically backed.
Awww are you okay, little snowflake?
He’s very fragile…I like that in a man.
Clearly he doesn’t understand what the Football World Cup means to so many nations. What do you think the reaction would be if it was a plane full of Americans watching the SuperBowl and someone scored a game winning touchdown…silence?
Cheering is one thing. Dropping F-bombs? Scum behavior.
Mathew: This reminds me of a moment , many years ago, of “What do I do know? Live TV was just being introduced in The Friendly Skies, for which I was an ISS aboard a DC-10 (ISS: Inflight Service Supervisor on Jumbo Jets). Our flight was EWR/LAX ,for which United had allowed us to choose news channels for viewing on our new large screens above the credenza in FC during boarding. As I glanced up during the usual frenzied boarding ritual, I was horrified to see a live picture of a smoldering Continental DC-10 that had recently crashed on approach into LAX. The introduction of live events in a closed cabin allowed the Law of Unintended Consequences to rear it’s unpredictable head. You show that some things just never change.
Was that CO 603 01 Mar 1978 which blew some left main tires & overshot the runway @ LAX on take-off for HNL ?
Ironic that many moons later UA would acquire CO, of course…
I think in a match of that magnitude that happens every four years, some noise after a big match is totally fine. You may not be a fan, but many people are. In a way, the World Cup unites all humanity. If they carried on for 12 hours, that’s a problem, but some hooting and hollering after an elimination game, especially onboard an Arab carrier with an Arab team playing, is OK.
This is one of the many reasons why I am opposed to having in-flight wi-fi / connectivity. As someone who likes to work when traveling, it makes it much more difficult to be productive as it creates the expectation that you are reachable when – in reality – the lack of connectivity is what makes the time hyper-productive.