Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur - BUSINESS CLASS- Qatar Airways QR168 Stockholm to Doha

QR168 Stockholm Arlanda to Hamad International Airport, Doha in Business Class with Qatar Airways. (Part of Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur)

Contents

QR168 Stockholm Arlanda Terminal 5 to Hamad International Airport, Doha
Qatar Airways, Seat 2A – Business Class
Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
2,870 Miles flow, 140 Tier Points Earned, 3,589 Avios Earned

With a bounce in my step, I headed down the jetway, and was welcomed aboard the Boeing 787

Looks like a 787

Yup – that’s a 787-8

I was welcomed aboard, and turned left. And as an editors note turning left is rare for me – especially when I’m paying on my own coin.

I headed towards the front of the plane – Seat 2A. Let’s look at the seat – a B/E Super Diamond. It would become a seat I would become familiar with this trip… to say the least.

The seat in view.

Seat controls.

USB Charging point and an exConnect Port. Idle thought – when has anyone actually used one in the past 5 years????

IFE Control (Thales) for QR168

Thales IFE System

All the warnings!

Menu cards were handed out, and drink orders were taken – along with a towel selection. Yes. A selection of towels. You could have them hot… or cold.

My bubbles were delivered – along with a cold towel.

As for the cabin – the overhead bins were deleted from the middle of the cabin – making it a big space to be in.

And there were overhead air vents. Always welcome to see.

Ever noticed the design of the air nozzles on a Boeing Sky Interior fitted plane or a Boeing 787? Have a look when on-board next time – the little nozzle controls look like propellers.

Amenity kits were delivered – these ones being Brics branded. There were variants for men and women.

As I pointed on a previous Qatar Airways trip, details are everywhere – even on the seatbelt.

Soon enough boarding was called as complete, and the safety video was played.

Dreamliner – Check.

Non-scary flight attendants – Check.

All the safety videos had a special segment about not moving you’re seat if you have dropped a personal electronic device into the seat. It’s good to see airlines recognising the risks of an electrical fire because of a seat crushing a phone, USB battery pack or some other technology.

After seeing the safety video, I checked the type of plane I was aboard – as well as the emergency exits…

With that, I booted up Oxyx One and explored the IFE system.

Sadly, there was not cameras, but at least there was the map – which is helpful.

With the plane pushing back – it was time to leave Stockholm Arlanda and head for Doha. QR169 pushed back and begun the short taxi to the runway.

Passing a Thomas Cook A330 taking people on holiday.

It was a short taxi to the runway, where the engines spooled up for a rocket down the runway, and take QR168 up into the sky.

Climbing out.

Farewell Arlanda. See you in a week…

Climb out

With the climb out in progress, the mood lighting was in full swing for the evening service.

I reached for the headphones and explored the system. With Thales system being Android based, it was easy to navigate and find content.

Nuts were also delivered to seat. Sadly, not hot.

My order was taken from the menu – with the dine on command concept being used.

WiFi was being advertised as being available on board. And for comedy purposes – I decided to try it.

Qatar Airways uses SITA OnAir’s in-flight Wi-Fi solution. And that in itself is a problem, as they use L-Band communications. Which… isn’t that powerful.

Qatar Airways offer 10mb/15 minutes free to its customers.

And providing all is well, you can connect.

Now, remember I talked about performance? I ran a Speedtest to confirm my suspicions (noticing the sign-up process crawled along). The results sadly did not surprise me.

This plane isn’t old – and fitting it with L Band systems like this is verging on the point of stupidity. And as for 10mb? I was able to get a few tweets out, an Instagram post and that was pretty much it.

10mb in the air is nothing. I was offered 30mb for US$5… which I declined. If I could burn through 10mb in less that 15 minutes, 30mb wasn’t going to last long.

With that done and dusted, I settled in. My table was set for the meal service.

And a little Top Gear too.

The table way laid out with little breads, olive oil and butter

An amuse-bouche was delivered (Goats cheese and beetroot)

And there were lots of little breads.

Hellllooooo Carbs!

Butter and oil.

The starter was delivered – with a salmon starter delivered

The salmon was light and not fishy, with the potato bottom adding flavour and texture. Extra bubbles were delivered… because 1) bubbles and 2) I’m not exactly working (well I was. I was reviewing this flight for you lot).

The main meal arrived which was an Arabic chicken. Lots of nice strong flavours in this chicken, with the rice nicely done too.

I skipped the desert – mainly as I was tired out from exploring during the day – but also was running on very minimal sleep.

And by minimal, I had 4 hours the day before (thanks to some emergency work needing to be done) and 2 hours after finishing work – therefore I opted to put the seat into an elevated sleeping position.

I didn’t wake up until about an hour before landing. That to me says 1) I’ll sleep on anything or 2) the Super Diamond isn’t a bad seat to sleep on.

More water is never a bad thing when flying – Hydration is everything.

Chocolates waiting.

It seems Qatar Airways still has a fetish of buttoning up the cabin 40 minutes before landing (compared to everyone else securing the cabin 20 minutes before landing). I’ve never worked out why – but there it is. QR168 was tidied and readied for landing.

Cabin in secured mode

Thankfully, the dimming windows had been turned off for landing, and the mood lighting had been set to minimal – meaning I could get the camera out for the approach to Doha.

Downtown Doha to the right

Ready for landing.

Turning for Hamad International

QR168 lined up, and made a gentle landing at Hamad International Airport, Doha, bring the first long haul flight of this trip to an end.

The plane begun a short taxi at the airport, and headed to a hard stand, where we would need to wait for buses to take us to the terminal.

Joy.

Qatar Airways A320 with Sharklets.The condensation in the windows was working overtime.

The Boeing 787-8 came to a halt at a hard stand. The seatbelt signs went off, I grabbed my bags and queue to get off.

The used cabin…

The seat afterwards

With the doors opened, I thanked the crew and headed out into the warm of Doha

Overall: The crew were friendly enough, but there felt to be a few rough edges to the service – little things like cold nuts (all the rest of the flights had nuts that were warm), and not picking up that I woke up and that would a drink would had been nice. But, you’d think with such a new airport – there would be enough jetbridges….

Next: 6 Hours in Doha.

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Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur – BUSINESS CLASS- Qatar Airways QR168 Stockholm to Doha

QR168 Stockholm Arlanda to Hamad International Airport, Doha in Business Class with Qatar Airways. (Part of Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur)

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