[Flight Report] BA 127 London - Doha

Like Emirates, Qatar Airways runs an aggressive operation at Heathrow with multiple widebody frequencies up to the A380 to the tiny city of Doha. The transit model has worked very well for them, and they're my favourite of the Middle East 3 when I used to fly between Asia and Europe annually.

With so much capacity, I wasn't surprised BA can't fill its planes. They run a far more sparse schedule with a once a day flight, and it's easy to find a redemption seat, while fares are not expensive either. I decided to buck the trend and have Qatar being my end destination and not transit. They've added a lot of museums since my last visit and with decent hotels at rock-bottom prices - even cheaper than Kuala Lumpur, my long-time value for money favourite in east Asia.

I've also never visited a Muslim country during Ramadan so wanted to see what Doha would look like during the day.

To make things more interesting, I'll fly BA to Doha and return on Qatar Airways to see how the two airlines differ. Since they're both oneworld partners, it's easy to mix them together into a roundtrip.

Heathrow Terminal 5 didn't seem too busy but things got a lot more annoying when my boarding pass could not scan at the security gate. In the end, there was nothing wrong with my piece of paper; I had to go across the terminal to the other security gate where I scanned in without any problems.

With not much time left before departure, I rushed to the train for the short ride to the B pier. Our gate was all the way at the end and it was quite a walk.





Today's 777 is an older plane but each seat had all the right amenities - a TV, headphones, blanket, and pillow. It wasn't a full flight when boarding was complete at 12:51pm and we pushed back only slightly delayed at 1:19pm.













As we pushed back and made our way to the take-off position, the safety video caught my attention. It has a mix of traditional Britishness, subtle humour, and a bit of action to keep you interested.







With a right window, there wasn't much of Central London for me as we took off towards the east.









However, I was able to spot Hampton Court Palace and nearby Kingston.







With a flight time of about 6 hours, this seat is more than sufficient for the relatively short long-haul flight. We were first served a drink and small snack.







A hot meal followed. The chicken rice tasted decent and it had plenty on the side as well, such as a bread roll, cheese, vegetable appetizer, and a super sweet dessert.







Satisfied from my meal, I turned my attention to the IFE. The system interface is quite old but it had a lot of content available.





The skies turned dark as we flew through Turkey and it was quite surreal flying above a few Iraqi cities that were on the news for all the wrong reasons recently. It's also safe to fly above the country now as well.





As we approached Doha, a second light meal was served - a hot sandwich. I wasn't hungry yet but took a few bites nevertheless. This would be my dinner as I would be arriving quite late in Doha and suspected restaurants would probably be closed by the time I reach my hotel.



The weather over the Persian Gulf was great and Kuwait was all lit up for their evening.



Having been well fed, I needed to visit the lavatory. This is where the 777's old age shows. I wouldn't be as harsh as to say it's falling apart, but the fittings' state really show their age. It wasn't dirty, but old.





Unfortunately, we veered a bit to the west as we came in for final approach and there wouldn't be much to see from my right window. I was highly anticipating seeing Doha's growing skyline but was out of luck tonight.













We took a 180 degree turn south of Doha to finally land from the south just ahead of schedule, reaching the gate at 10:49pm.



BA delivered a good experience with 2 meals on this short flight. The crew did their job efficiently and effectively and the seat was quite comfortable with enough entertainment options on their IFE to keep busy. Let's see if Qatar Airways can fare better on the return flight.

I was initially quite worried about tonight's late evening arrival since the last train leaving the airport would be just past midnight. Arriving at 11pm and possibly waiting an hour for immigration, I would cut quite close to that deadline. But then, taxis here are cheap so in the worst case scenario, I would get driven to the hotel.



Luckily, it wasn't a long wait to get through immigration although staff here are slow to process. Nevertheless, I had ample time to make my train.

Hamad airport originally opened without the metro, and the train line arrived only recently so things are not well integrated. It is a very long walk, albeit covered, to reach the metro stop from the terminal, then head down a few escalators to reach the concourse.







The full report is on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/ba127.htm