Qatar Airways issues - A Review

Is Qatar Airways truly 5 Star airlines? They advertise as 5 star airlines! Might be a misunderstanding. My experience with Qatar rather came by surprise. Thought I would give it a try for my trip to India this year. Trip for my family was booked from Toronto all the way through to Kolkata. Route was Toronto - Heathrow - Doha - Kolkata - Doha - Heathrow - Montreal - Toronto. We booked through Expedia and sold by Qatar. In all transits, the transit time was only about an hour.

Our Qatar Airways trip to Kolkata was canceled 3 times after we initially booked the flights almost 3 months before the trip. After many negotiations to Expedia and Expedia with Qatar (As Expedia says), finally, our tickets were confirmed only week and half before the trip. Many email communications still remain as a frustrating memory.

It all started with booking our baggage only until Doha at the Air Canada counter at Toronto airport. Despite my repeated requests the agent at the desk insisted, that was how the ticket was was booked by Expedia, that Qatar is not an alliance of Air Canada and she cannot change. Just before boarding I discussed this with Air Canada dispatch. They confirmed that it was a mistake on the Air Canada agents part but cannot change this any more as the bags were already loaded to the aircraft.

In this whole trip, Qatar had only 1 hour transit time at both Heathrow and Doha which leaves very short time to collect the boarding pass in all these transits as they do not provide boarding pass for the whole trip. It was very challenging. In addition, according to dispatch advise from Toronto Air Canada counter, I had to speak to Qatar agent at Heathrow and Doha to make sure our bags are loaded into the next aircraft without me re-booking them.

While returning, the Qatar flight from Doha delayed for hour and a half and resulted in missing the flight from Montreal. The next flight was 3 hours apart. Waiting for the delayed flight at Doha was not comfortable at all. Hundreds of passengers were passed through boarding counter only to dump them in the small crowded space at the ground floor standing, tired and waiting for a bus for more than 30 minutes. It took each one of the bus about 40 min to carry the passengers from the airport main building to the aircraft location stopping at many places as we go. Poor traffic system within the airport. Massive airport but with poor coordination.

In the aircraft service was competitive to that of British Airways or Jet Airways. Nothing special. We do not see any reason to travel by Qatar airways for our future trips unless we are going to Qatar.