Trip Report: London to Doha Qatar Business Class A380
Ah, the Qatar A380. Once the Epitome of Luxury with Qatar boasting of the facilities on board, once Covid hit, Qatar promptly sent all of the ten strong fleet, to permanent retirement in the desert.
Which makes it all the more surprising that the airline hurriedly reactivated four of the superjumbo fleet as a stop-gap measure when it was clear the airline just didn't have enough aircraft to cope with a huge post-Covid demand in aviation, and has now brought a total of eight of the double-deckers out of enforced retirement in recent weeks to cope with the increase in post-pandemic travel.
When I found out the giant aircraft was once again going to shuttle between Doha and London, I was determined to get on board for its brief resurgence. Hence, London Heathrow is where we start a trip to Australia at 4am in the morning, for check in for Qatar's first flight of the day. This followed a late-night trip on the embryo Elizabeth Line and a stay at the Sofitel, which is right at Terminal 5. The Elizabeth Line is a fantastic fast line with runs direct to LHR from Central London, and avoids all that tedious mucking about with the fantastically expensive Heathrow Express. Although at the time I tried it, TFL Rail (formerly Heathrow Connect) was just running between Heathrow Airport and Paddington Station, as it has done for the past 3 years, while Elizabeth Line opening dates have slipped.
The Sofitel Terminal 5 is an OK hotel, which has the main advantage that you can walk directly into the terminal. The downsides are the four lifts which you have to take to go up and down levels to get to check in, plus the way most rooms directly overlook the interior of the hotel. For this reason, never take a ground floor room, or one overlooking the bar.
Unusually, Qatar are now based at Terminal 5, which was designed as a home just for British Airways. Qatar were based at Terminal 4, with a lovely lounge there, however that closed early in the pandemic to be used for red zone arrivals. As a short term stopgap, a couple of years back, Qatar joined fellow Oneworld members including British Airways, Iberia and American Airlines at Terminal 5.
Consequently, I checked in checked in under the huge banner proclaiming it as British Airways 'home' terminal, at a set of desks for Qatar Airways. Check in took quite a while, as there were only two desks for Business Class, and there were half a dozen passengers ahead of me. Almost everyone was flying to Australia, as it was the day when Australia finally opened up to the world, and allow in any international traveller, after two long years of closed borders. However, the Qatar staff were totally unprepared for the change in Australia from the APD to DPD form just the day before. Some passengers had only filled in an APD form, which wasn't being accepted, and others had no form at all.
There was one other odd part of the process. I asked about lounge access, and I was asked if I was on a 'lite' fare. I would have thought the staff could check this, but I was flying on a redemption Business Class ticket using Frequent Flyer points, which clearly confused the process. Access has changed again, and Qatar Frequent flyer redemptions don't get access, but Qantas once again do. Qatar Airways was one of the first airlines to "unbundle" its business class fares, which removed airport lounge access from the most competitively priced tickets, and as I found at Heathrow there was some confusion as to whether entry to an airport lounge is no longer part of the deal.
Finally, I was given a piece of card and told I could access 'any Business Class or first class lounge'. Alas, once I was past security, and went up the escalators to the British Airways lounge, this proved to be a nonsense. Of course there was no access to the First lounge (or rather, the Gold Executive Club lounge), but I struggled to even get access to BA's Silver lounge, as they ignored the piece of card I'd been given, and refused to accept the boarding card as I might be on a 'lite' fare. Finally, my Gold Frequent Flyer card got me through the door.
London Heathrow British Airways Business Class Lounge
I have extensively reviewed the London Heathrow British Airways Business Class Lounge Terminal 5 South.
This lounge is BA's main business class lounge, with great view of the Southern runway. The British Airways Galleries Club South lounge as one big rectangle, into which you come in half way along, opposite the food section. There are good newspaper racks here. On the left is the main seating area, with posters from BA's past. On the right hand side of the arm there are more seats, in long benches, in a lovely shade of brown.
There is a cinema on the left hand side of the lounge, with very comfy seats, and usually it is deserted meaning you can flick the telly onto whatever you want. Past this there is a good coffee house.
You have to order food using a QR code at your seat, and enter in details of your table number. I had my doubts about this seeing some other passengers fail to get what they ordered, but in reality my bacon roll arrived within minutes. I also tried a bowl of fruit, and the yoghurt, all of which were excellent, as was the coffee, brewed by the machine.
Alas, the BA lounge is of course not a patch on Qatar's own vast lounge with dedicated restaurant over in Terminal 4, being as it is the 'base' level lounge. Anyone with a Gold Frequent Flyer card gains admittance to the better Gold lounge downstairs - it's a rare case where economy passengers with the right elite level gets a better lounge than those in Business Class. However, I was thankfully not be on BA that morning - BA had cancelled about half of it's flights, due to an IT failure.
There was also an open bar in the Silver lounge: coloured Silver, of course. Just to ensure it was of the finest quality, I tried a small glass of Champagne to get ready for the trek to the gate. And it was a trek.
If I hadn't done the journey many times before, I wouldn't believe JUST how far it was to get to the C gates, which of course are at a remote location and only accessible by train, or walking through the deep level tunnel. For almost all flights, the B or C satellite designator appeared on the board, however for the Qatar flight it just had the gate number, which as I later found caused yet more confusing for many passengers.
Once at the C gates the aircraft was already boarding an hour ahead of scheduled departure time, but after the boarding card check, the priority and economy queues merged into the most amazingly long snaking like, all the way along the long bridge to the aircraft.
It was insane.
I arrived at the aircraft door, and finally managed to get into my seat.
At least the crew had the good grace to apologise for the lack of any priority boarding, and immediately offered both a welcoming glass of lime juice, and more crucially a glass of champagne. There were also hot towels.
Qatar A380 Business Class
If the Qatar A380 Business Class seat looks a bit retro, that's because it is. There are vastly better seats on the latest Qatar 777, with the new QSuite with sliding doors, which I have previously reviewed. The QSuite is superb, whereas the A380 seat is a little more conventional, but still pretty good.
The Qatar Airways A380 Business Class cabin is located on the upper deck, and is home to 48 seats set out in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone layout. Behind the single, large, Business Class cabin is the lounge, and behind this is a tiny economy class cabin.
The 1-2-1 layout means every seat has direct access to the aisles, while the middle seats work for couples who like to sit together. These seats have a central divider between the seats offers a lot of privacy when raised. Every window seat is at an angle of about 30 degrees to the window, and had large side stowage bins, which are ideal for keeping the pillows and blankets provided at your seat.
Does Qatar business class have flat beds? Yes, on the Qatar A380 it is sure does, although it may not look it. In effect when the seat reclines, the Qatar Airways business class seats convert into fully flat beds with your feet tucking into the small tunnel ahead of you, which is below the side table of the seat ahead of you. The bed is 80 inches long (about 2 meters), but I found the area in the footwell quite confining. Indeed, in bed mode the seat can feel a little cosy, but the large side area and the open nature of the cabins means you won't feel cramped.
There is a side armrest, which is lowered electronically to give more space to the seat, and which has a flip top to open up into a useful side bin, where the headphones are. Controls for this are in the vast array of seat buttons, most of which put the seat into upright, dining or sleeping modes. There is also a massage function.
There is also another useful cubbyhole under the small shelf underneath the main window, where there is also the headphone socket, mains power and USB charging ports.
Overall the cabin gives off a good feeling of space, with the centre section of the aircraft offers large overhead bins which makes it easy for all passengers to find somewhere to store their carry-on baggage. At floor level there is also a drawer that's large enough to store shoes.
The seat also has a large folded tray table which deploys from underneath the inflight entertainment screen. It's one of the largest on any aircraft in Business Class.
I also had a quick look back at economy. Few passengers are aware of it, but there's a tiny 56-seater economy cabin towards the very back of the upper deck, behind the business class lounge area. It's a hidden oasis of economy calm, and it has a 2-4-2 configuration, as opposed to the cramped 3-4-3 on the whole of the lower deck.
Qatar A380 Entertainment & WiFi
While the Qatar A380 Business Class 17-inch touchscreen isn't the best of Qatar's fleet - certainly compared to the 777 QSuite (at 21 inches) - it's still a very good high definition screen. Qatar Airways' entertainment catalogue is vast and extensive, however the good (but not excellent) choice of films has a strong American slant, and there are few British or European films. There's no live news via satellite, and some R-rated Hollywood movies are brutally censored. There are also outside cameras, unlike on the Qatar 777.
There is a very good remote control built into the seat, which is very useful, as it also has it's own screen, and can be used to display an inflight map.
The noise cancelling headphones, however, are another beast entirely. They are anything but good. Large and clunky, they do a remarkably poor job of keeping out engine noise.
Is Wi-Fi free in Qatar Airways? There sure is, but don't believe the hype from Qatar about there being 'complimentary high-speed Super Wi-Fi, available for your entire flight'. It's a nice sales pitch, but totally fails to match up to reality. For one, it's incredibly slow. The Wifi slowed to a crawl for about the first hour of the flight, as everyone used up their 'free' hour. One suggestion: wait until dinner is over before browsing.
Secondly, there are two charging plans. On the A380 it is very much old school Qatar, where you get one hour of free Wi-Fi, just for messaging. This can be useful halfway through the flight just to check all is OK, and keep in touch.
It is far better than on the Qatar's 777s where you only get one hour free if you are a Privilege Club member. Otherwise, it's $10USD for the entire flight. However, the 777s offer faster internet.
Qatar A380 Amenity Kit
I was looking forward to checking out the new Qatar Airways Business Class amenity kit. Created by French perfume house Diptyque, there are two styles of amenity kit: on what is regarded as 'short haul' coming down from London there was just a small 'box'.
The amenity kits are not only back, after a hiatus while Covid was on, but they also now feature a range of skin care products including a lip balm, a hydrating facial mist, and Diptyques essential face cream with a heart of roses, voluptuous notes of prickly pear and the freshness of lemon petitgrain. The kits include socks, eye shades, and earplugs.
Alas, as this was a daytime flight, there were not pyjamas, and seats were not equipped with the mattress toppers.
Qatar A380 Business Class meals
A menu and a wine list are at each seat as you board, and I was offered a glass of lime juice, or a glass of champagne. Naturally, I chose both.
The menu is however a little confusing: At first glance there are just a long list of meal choices, but little to separate them. This is because Qatar make much of their 'dine on demand' offering in Business Class. You can literally order whatever is on the menu at any time you choose, so there is no real set order of First Service, or light snack.
The crew were friendly and efficient, and asked when we would like our main course of breakfast. However, considering everyone in the plane had been up for hours before the 8am takeoff, pretty much the entire cabin decided to dine immediately.
Today's menu had:
Orange juice
Fruit Smoothie
Starters
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh bakery with sourdough and croissant
- Greek yoghurt with mango and coconut granola
- Kelloggs Corn Flakes or Fruit n Fibre
- Assiette of cold cuts with Balink salmon
- Boiled egg, goats cheese and olives
MAINS
- Cheddar cheese omelette with grilled chicken sausage
- Charred spinach, boiled potato and parsley
- Brioche French toast with pistachio labneh
- Steel cut oats with berries and cream
Light options
- Superfood salad with edame beans
- Oven baked fish and chips with truffle tartare
- Afternoon tea with sandwiches, warm scones, clotted cream and pastries
- Grilled sourdough sandwich with beef pastralmi
I was somewhat surprised that the Qatar crew took the menu off me as soon as I had ordered, presumably to reuse on the next flight.
All meals are brought individually from the galley, after table cloths have been laid, and even better, the lovely touch of a candle in an Arabic holder on the table, along with salt and pepper pots and a full selection of silver cutlery. It really looks the part, and such a change from Qatar just a couple of months ago, when Covid was on, and meals were heavily pared back and very basic. Now the before times are back, and so are the candles on the tables.
I started with the fresh bakery with a croissant, along with peach jam, which was great. Followed by Orange Juice, Greek yoghurt and strawberry compote, which was superb.
The Fresh fruit surprised me, as Qatar really pushed the boat out, and instead of having them in a small bowl, had a plate of the fruit, which was great.
It was a sadly different story with the assiette of cold cuts with Balink salmon, plus caper berry, goats cheese with chives, tomatoes and a boiled egg. Now, an assiette is also used to showcase the versatile ways you can cook and serve meats, and in a traditional French style can be a wonderful way to start the day. Sadly, this was the one dish were Qatar really disappointed. Tasteless, with poor cuts of meat, and bad salmon, I had to return most of it to the galley.
Much more pedestrian, but oddly somewhat better with improved flavour, was the cheddar cheese omelette with grilled chicken sausage. Now, Qatar love their chicken sausages (no pork, see?) but they are starting to do them really well. This was mixed with some herbs, and was really good, with charred spinach, boiled potato and parsley. True, the omelette as a little plain and bland, with just average cheese, but otherwise it was far better than I expected.
Qatar Airways Wine Selection
Even though it was still 9 in the morning, I had been up for at least 5 hours, as had most of the cabin, and the crew were very willing to showcase the wine available. Indeed the drinks selection was very good, with some of the wine on board retailing in my native Australia for upwards to over a hundred dollars a bottle. There are two Champagnes, three whites and three reds.
There were two types of Champagne on the menu. The main champers was Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve (£35 at Tesco). It had a complex and elegant aroma with rich toasted notes.
There was a Rose Champagne too, the vintage 2006 Bollinger; a brilliant salmon pink with fragrances of dried flowers (£46 at Tesco).
The standout white wine was the Bouchard Pare & Fils Meursault Les Clous from Cote de Beaune, in Bourgogne, France. A classic Chardonnay, it had oaky notes of butter, oak, and vanilla.
Sauvignon Blanc was the Esk Valley Marlborough 2018. This is a very intense and powerful wine. True to its Marlborough origins with a mix of ripe tropical fruits, citrus and cooler notes of fresh herbs; dry and full bodied but a sharp crisp finish. It retails for about £7.
Plus, a cheaper third was the Montesolae Greco di Tufo DOCG from Campania, Italy. It's got hand picked grapes, and intense fruity flavours, but is a cheapie £5 from Sainsburys.
Red wines were the superb Chateau Lynch Moussas grand cru classe Pauillac 2014 from France, the Syrah Zarihs 2015 from Campo de Borja in Spain, and the Greek Grande Cuvee Nemea 2015 by Domaine Skouras.
Dessert wine is the Nobel Late Harvest 2018 by Nederburg.
Port is Dow's 20 year old Tawny Port.
Qatar A380 inflight bar & lounge
The Qatar A380 in Business Class offers one very special feature that no other Qatar Airways aircraft offers - a bar.
Quite simply, the Qatar Airways A380 Bar is a lovely edition to the aircraft, and a highlight of the Qatar Airways A380. It is positioned on the upper deck between the Business Class cabin and the Economy Class cabin and is staffed by a bartender for most of the flight. Alas, they repeated Qatar's rule about not taking any photos of the aircraft, so I had to be discrete.
You can walk up to the bar, and order your choice of drink or cocktails.
There are also a choice of canapes on the bar top, but these are just for show: if you point at what you are after, the crew will get you a fresh one from the fridge.
I went for the raspberry cheesecake, which was fantastic.
Alas, the design is all just a little bit - odd. There is a huge snaking workbench top through the whole lounge area, that just has some roses below it. It takes up a huge amount of space, and seems to have no real function. There are seats along both sides, which are better: they have seat belts so passengers can buckle-up during turbulence and there are even power sockets around the bar area, although few people ever seem to use them.
It is a good place to wander along to on a long flight for a change of scene, or even chat to other passengers. However, don't believe the advertising: it isn't really a place for elites to mix and mingle, it is more of a pit stop where the tired and bored go for a beer. Still, it performs that function admirably, even if Emirates A380 design of bar is somewhat more practical.
The Qsuites generally get all the glory when it comes to Qatar Airways and they usually eclipse most of what the A380 offers, but on very long flights (especially daytime flights) the A380 bar is a fantastic onboard amenity to have and one that deserves a bit more limelight than it gets.
Qatar Airways afternoon snacks
After a good five hours flying, it was getting dusky as we headed down to the Gulf.
The menu offered some 'light bites' for the second part of the flight, and I decided to try Qatar's traditional British Afternoon Tea, which certainly impressed me.
There were three sandwiches, with egg, coronation chicken, and salmon.
All were a delight. There was also a slice of lime cake, which was fantastic, along with a macaroon.
The scones were great too, with dollops of Cornish clotted cream, and strawberry jam. It went well with the Chateau Lynch Moussas red wine, which had a light peppery taste, rather like a Shiraz.
Shortly after that, we began our decent into Doha.
Qatar Airways A380 Business Class review
So would I recommend Qatar Airways in Business Class in it's A380.
Yes, yes, and yes again.
Now, the aircraft is no QSuite aircraft; the seat does feel a little bit last generation, without the wonderful feeling of privacy you get on the Boeing 777.
However, the service is as good as ever, and it's great that Qatar haven't cut their meal service down to one, as Emirates and Etihad have.
But the single standout feature is being able to nip along to the bar and lounge mid-flight, and enjoy a leg-stretch and chat with other passengers.
Hence, I recommend taking the A380 to Doha, and then going onward to Australia on the Boeing 777 where the QSuites allow you more sleep.
Either way, Qatar didn't disappoint me on this trip.
See the full Trip Report: London to Doha Qatar Business Class A380 video:
Lux-traveller paid its own way for this Trip Report: London to Doha Qatar Business Class A380, and travelled incognito.
| Trip Report: London to Doha Qatar Business Class A380 | |
|---|---|
Lux-traveller.com rating:7 out of10  | |
| Seats: | 6 - Old style business class seats |
| Food: | 7 - Surprisingly good |
| Service: | 7 - Decent, not exceptional |
| IFE: | 6 - OK |
Recommended
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