Review of Qatar Airways flight from Berlin to Doha in Business

Hello Hell.

Well hello everyone and welcome to a somehow spontaneous flight on my way to Abu Dhabi.
Today's routing: Berlin’s beloved BER to Doha to Abu Dhabi. A simple trip, right? Darling, you know better. A teaser might be the fuselage shot of my dreamliner taken at sunrise (or sunset?) as this FR's cover picture - only one way to find out!

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Check in

Arriving at BER always triggers the existential anger I have towards this airport.

Berlin used to have a nice and at some point charmingly vintage Tegel airport (which was 20 minutes away from my place) and Schönefeld which was a bit further but at least mostly served low cost carriers.
After a disastrous construction saga, the new airport is: too far away (1 to 1.5 hours is normal for me and taxi prices increased accordingly), too big (long walks), too small (no gate area actually fits its passengers), has mediocre food, bad lounges, mediocre security flow even in the fast track lane and smoking rooms that smell like sadness.

Nevertheless, following my spiritual beliefs, I tend to arrive at the airport what I call "just in time". Others might call it "too late". Because of that, counters were empty and I quickly dropped off my bag, collected my boarding passes and even got a nice comment from the agent that my choice of "lobster" from the dining menu had printed onto my boarding pass. Security took only a few minutes and I was off to the infamous Berlin Lounge Tempelhof.

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Lounge and Boarding

The lounge? No pictures because there was nothing memorable. I pass by that lounge every now and then and the offering is always disappointing with low tier cold cuts and industrial pastries. Sometimes the catering gods bring out hot dishes but they are canteen food at best. So let's be honest, BER lounges are just waiting rooms at the edge of the building whose main benefit is free water (which you can get at the single water fountain after security anyway).

However, the Tempelhof lounge does have one advantage. The long power walk to reach it gives you access to the lounge's private immigration control. It even feels a bit fancy.

I grabbed a free water and immediately decided to pay the lonely immigration officer a visit. After another long power walk to the other side of the terminal, because why place lounges in the middle of the terminal, I passed the checkpoint. Fun fact: because the LH lounges are so isolated, Lufthansa now offers free scheduled golf cart transfers between its lounges and most gates. Where the golf cart can drive at least, because some parts of the airport have hallways that are too narrow.

I arrived at the gate with a nice view of today's bird, which was indeed a 787 9. Berlin is served by QR with either the 787 8 (old J) or the 787 9 with the Business Suites, which I really like. I would love to complain about the 787 8 but considering that Berlin does not get a lot of long haul traffic and cities like Vienna or Prague are stuck with the A320 and the occasional A350, I keep my mouth shut.

Priority boarding was called and I made my way down the jetbridge.

I sat down in a roughly 60 to 70 percent full cabin and asked for a lemon mint as a welcome drink, one of my favourites.

The cabin crew was amazing as always on QR and went through the standard protocol with a lot of warmth and attention.

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Preparation for take off

Safety video rolling, menus handed out, seat pockets filled with what I needed for the flight. The usual ritual we all pretend to be new to, although most of us could operate half of this plane blindfolded.

Pushback came with a view of the not so exciting airlines parked at BER today: Condor, Lufthansa and Nouvelair.

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Food

I know we all love dine on demand, but I somehow always end up eating directly after take off. Even if I am not hungry, the smell and noises of service later make me hungry, so I went ahead and asked to be served right after departure.

I do not have the menu saved, but overall the food was very good, especially my preordered Chilean sea bass with lobster.

I noticed that, without it being a conscious decision, I started ordering more fish on planes. The risk of chewy, low quality or overcooked meat compared to the number of surprisingly good fish dishes I had in the air makes me lean towards the sea side these days.

(I will add the detailed impressions here once I find the menu again.)

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Sleep

Bed mode engaged. Pillow plush. Blanket cozy. Just the right temperature so there were zero fights with the thermostat.

A very respectable nap. No turbulence, no screaming children, no existential crises. A win.

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Diversion

A bit early for my taste, but the crew offered pre arrival meals and I went for the lobster mac and cheese. To be honest, it was more of a disappointment. The lobster was not tender and the cheese was not really melted. I took a few bites and set it aside.

Then came the plot twist.

We started descending, but Doha did not appear. Instead, the announcement:

"We are diverting to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia."

We were told that DOH was closed with no further information.

I checked the inflight wifi and, without even paying, saw a BBC or CNN headline that Iran had fired missiles at Doha. I quickly contacted the crew to chat about it and they told me they were aware and that, according to their information, there were no deaths.

A bit ironic considering I had only recently dodged another conflict on my way to India.

We did not know how long we were going to wait, so I changed (again) into my pyjamas. On the way to the back lavatory, the curtains to economy were open and I got some looks. At that moment I was very happy I had chosen business class for this exact flight.

I took my horizontal position, which is the only correct way to use a business class seat, and took a short nap.

After some time there was an announcement that DOH was gradually opening again but that we still needed to refuel. This meant another wait of around 1.5 hours if I remember correctly, as we were not first in line and the large parking area was full of QR planes.

Once refueled, we were finally ready to leave. The crew stayed very attentive throughout and at some point handed me a masala chai. One more beverage and one more reason to love QR.

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Arrival into DOH

Touchdown in Doha.

We parked at a remote position and I did not really know what to expect. I was pretty calm and annoyed at the same time.

Original plan:
BER 16:30 - DOH 23:10
Sleep in a room in Al Safwa
DOH 08:45 - AUH 10:55
Spend the day in Abu Dhabi, then take my onward flight from Dubai at 23:35 that same day.

Since we landed in DOH at 04:49 I thought I still had enough time to catch my connection. I had slept a bit on the plane and planned to sleep again in Abu Dhabi.

What followed when the buses dropped us off can only be described as a scene from the movie 2012. What I later found out to be upwards of 10 to 13 thousand people were stranded at the same time as us when we entered the magic doors of DOH. All of them were concentrated around transit security and the counters. The reason was that throughout the night, starting from the moment of the attack up until now, no planes had departed from DOH.

I literally had to push my way through to reach the heavenly escalator to Al Safwa, which was glowing in its own peaceful parallel universe. It was a bit busier than usual, but still a sharp contrast to the war like scenario in the public area. Once again, I was very happy to be travelling in a premium cabin that day.

I did some plane spotting and noticed, through the dirty windows, that even US Bangla was parked in DOH that day.

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Connecting or not connecting?

My onward flight to Abu Dhabi was either not showing at all, or showing as delayed, or disappearing and reappearing on the screens. What helped was knowing that it was an A320 which usually boards by bus, so there would likely be a direct lounge to aircraft transfer with the fancy buses.

However, with no QR flights departing, DOH being at a standstill and flights still arriving, the lounge became increasingly busy and the stress level rose. I had another flight on a separate booking out of Dubai that evening and the clock was ticking.

My thoughts went in all directions. At some point it became noticeable that flights of foreign carriers were departing again, some around lunchtime even on time. I kept watching the FIDS and simultaneously scanning the internet, ready to abandon my bags with QR if needed and hop onto a flydubai flight directly to Dubai. I even had the booking page open as a backup plan.

Queues were getting longer and seats were getting rarer. I still managed to grab a shower at some point. The pool had a waiting time of around 6 hours, I had no idea yet that I would stay long enough to actually qualify for it. I did not try the sleeping rooms because I never trusted the departure times and it always seemed like my flight could leave soon. I barely sat down and mostly walked around during my stay, half from stress and half because I always thought there was not much time left.

I did stop for some food. Here is the menu.

Food was good and service quick.

Apart from that, there was not much to do except smoke cigarettes and look out of the window at a frozen DOH. Staff told me they had never seen anything like this in many years at QR and DOH.

At some point, with time reaching a critical point for my Dubai connection, I lined up to get rebooked onto flydubai since my disappearing and reappearing Abu Dhabi flight did not inspire much confidence. It was also noticeable that flights within the GCC, such as the UAE, were not really being prioritised.

I stood in the queue for a few minutes until suddenly an employee shouted "Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi". I ran to grab my things from storage and headed straight for the boarding gate. It must have been the first, or one of the first, lounge boardings since my arrival. At the gate I was greeted by the staff members I had been chatting with earlier and a group of very tired but excited First Class passengers, all very happy to finally be called by the boarding gods.

We waited a bit in our First Class bus and then drove off to the aircraft. I could only imagine what was happening in the terminal and at the regular gate. I kept wondering whether all passengers would actually make it onto the flight. In the end, the plane left fully loaded and I was very happy to see the crew. I told the flight attendant that I needed a drink after all this and was promptly given a glass of champagne that I almost could not believe I was drinking on this beautiful little A320.

After some more chatting with the crew, I found out that they had been waiting for hours for us. Scheduled time had been 08:45 to 10:55, we finally operated from 14:53 to 16:53. One of the crew members had even just come back from Berlin the day before, not on my flight but on the earlier 787 8 service.

The flight itself to Abu Dhabi was uneventful, in the best sense of the word. I slept for most of the short hop to AUH. After landing, I collected my bags and ordered a Careem to Dubai.