Etihad Airways v Qatar Airways

[toolonggone]

Hi all, Looking for a bit of general advice......heading to KUL for a family wedding, and have been given a choice of going with Etihad (via AUH) or Qatar (via DOH) in Y Class (prospective father in law paying...too tight for C class!) What are peoples thoughts on the respective products and which would you opt for?

Any thoughts greatly received! Cheers.

[FormerFlyer]

Not sampled EY so can't comment there, however v impressed with pitch on QR in Y (I'm too skint to pay for J!) - there was no way that my knees were anywhere near the seat in front. I think I'm an average height @ 5'10".

Certainly not had that sort of comfort in Y on any European or N American carrier.

cheers ;)
FF

[toolonggone]

Cheers. Think will opt for QR. Thanks again.

[Jet II]

Where are you flying from?

If out of LGW then Etihad's new 777's are very good - Y class seats are definately better than Qatar's A330's

[boredcounter]

Check your transit times also. DOH experiencing, delays shall we say. If you miss your connection, the Hotac will poss be of a very low standard. If you have a longish layover, ie 5-6 hours, good luck, DOH not the greatest airport in the World.
Bored.

[FormerFlyer]

Apparently if you've not been to DOH airport in the last couple of months (as I've not, since May) then you won't recognise the place - in a good way :E

I'm off out there on 27th Nov to see the opening ceremony of the Asian Games :) And this time I splashed out for J both ways...only cost a grand, so I'm well chuffed :ok:

cheers ;)
FF

[boredcounter]

Be interested on feedback on your trip, overall, not just the flight. You have been there since I left two years ago. It was all falling apart then, threats of pulling the games etc. The effort I saw put into sporting events in my short time over there, to be fair, was little short of fantastic...............
Golf, Football, Superbikes, Speedboats (though a Qatari interest). All big name events and mostly free to spectators.
If they have cracked it with the games, you are in for a good ride, fasten your saftey belt. Post your feedback, love to read up.
Bored

[krisgnair]

Etihad will be the best option!!! Service far better than QR

[FormerFlyer]

I've been delighted to read that the new F/J class only terminal in DOH is going to be ops OK for the end of this month.....another new experience ahead of me :ok:

cheers ;)
FF

[Scarebus_A300]

Hmmm.. I have never flown with Etihad, but recently flew with Qatar Airways from Madrid-Doha-Columbo {and vice versa} shortly after new year.

Hmm, well on the Madrid-Doha-Columbo leg we had an A300-600R. Now, don't get me wrong, the crew were friendly, chatty and the onboard service on their behalf was impeccable. However, I was very very disappointed with the amount of legroom I got on the old scarebus, and also at the fact that there were no personal t.v. units for each passenger. This would have not been a problem for me really had the airline not boasted itself to be 'the five star airline', so can you understand my gripe there??

However, returning from Columbo to Doha we had an A330-200, and truly, it was probably one of the best flights I had ever experienced. The legroom was plentiful, the seats were comfortable, the inflight entertainment was second to none with plenty of English, European, American and Arabic films and t.v. shows to keep everyone happy. Also, again, the crew were second to none again!

Sadly, going back to Madrid, we were on the old A300 again.... :hmm:

So, to conclude, I would like to say that Qatar were good, and I would use them again most definately.... Just they don't live up to the slogan of 'the five star airline'... But hey, thumbs up to the aircrew and Captain Luc (I think his name was) for talking to me and answering my questions!!

[roger reed]

qatar airways has been the best ive travellled so far.the crew were cosmo and very peppyy...gelled really well..5 star airline is just a rating and i do think they ve live up to it...the european carriers need to get an attitude makeover...enjoy:ok:

[MrSoft]

Done both in economy, both on A332 and what I would say is, as long as nothing untoward happens, both offer a superb experience for the money.

Etihad, marginally comfier seats, noise cancelling headphones (!), cheerful crew. Abu Dhabi airport is, to my mind, a fun place to be, though some find it pokey. Qatar, quality product, more sober crew. Doha wipes the floor with almost any UK airport for clarity, comfort and cleanliness. Bus transfers at Doha rather than airbridges, no big deal. Both airlines some way ahead of average European legacy carrier.

Both airports have pretty tedious transit desks so if at all possible I recommend getting boarding cards all the way through.

Now if things go wrong...Painful lack of back-up in AUH. They get a lot of fog at certain times of the year but seem totally caught out. You might as well forget it tear up your ticket and start your trip again from scratch (as I once had to). Also, I am sorry to say that EY is the ONLY carrier which ever bumped me off an over-booked flight as a fait accompli, no bribes, no search down the line for volunteers, just turned up 2 hrs before departure in AUH and was told, this flight is overbooked, you're off :confused::confused: followed by 2 or 3 hours of struggle with lazy and grumpy reps whose sympathy extended to the comment "we are in the overbooking season now sir".

I can't comment on how Qatar handle adverse situations but I can say Etihad didn't cover themselves in glory.

For both carriers the cabin comfort and perceived service quality seem to be superior on equipment originating from Europe and slightly inferior for onward legs into South Asia etc.

[Donkey497]

Did LHR-AUH-KUL & KUL-AUH-LHR back in September on Etihad. As it was business, we ended up in J, rather than Y. Having said that I have never had a better level of service or wider choice of entertainment & standard of catering on any other flight. Had a 9 hour layover in AUH on the way back due to overbooked flight to LHR, but we knew this before we started out & were well looked after in the transit lounge.

As far as the Y accomodation goes it appeared to be superior to what you would find in most any other airline. You get the the same choice of entertainment as J class, but presented in a truly superb format.

One truly superb thing on Etihad is that they have forward and downward looking cameras on their planes and you can switch between them whilst taxying, taking off, in flight & landing. On the overnight flight back to AUH from KUL, my mate woke me up to show me a plane he had picked up on the forward camera pass directly underneath us on the reciprocal track. Truly superb! (He also suggested that it would be good to have Daffy Duck come into view flying sedately in front of the forward camera view just after take-off before noticing the aircraft and panicking :\. Sometimes I think that he's not got everyone's best intersts at heart.)

Having compared notes with other guys in our Company who have done similar trips on Qatar, Etihad certainly gets our vote. The cabin crew are also pretty easy on the eye as well, speaking strictly non-politically correctly of course. :D:ok:

[greenwich123]

I totally Agree, Etihad Airways is absolutely hopeless with customer service and compensation. I've flown with them once and never again. At Johanesburg airport, staff arrived at their desks 45 mins before the flight take-off time, only to realise that their computer systems were down. Passengers, including a pregnant woman with a 2 yr old child, were told to just run to the gates as fast as possible and we would be issued boarding cards there. Ofcourse that was a complete mess as well. My boarding card had someone else's name on it! I had a stop over at Abu Dhabi, before continuing my journey to Mumbai. At abu dhabi airport, I stood in a long queue for 40 mins, to get my boarding card! Too much for transit passengers I feel, but that was not all. I blindly pocketed my boarding card, and realised when I shopped that it did not have my name on it, so approached the staff again. I was told to join the back of the queue! I decided to be nice to fellow passengers and did just that. While she was issuing my boarding card, I asked the lady to confirm whether my luggage was loaded on the flight from johanesburg. She sent me to another desk where there was an equally long queue! After spending 3 of my 5 transit hours queuing, I reached the information desk where the man spent a few mins typing a lot of stuff on the computer, just to check whether my luggage was loaded on the flight and he confirmed that it was....or rather that the computer said 'yes'. Upon arriving in mumbai, all us passengers who were in transit in Johanesburg had not recieved our luggage! When I confronted staff about why they had lied to me at Abu Dhabi, they became defensive, cursed their own computer systems, denied responsibility, and said we only told you what the system said! Now...hang on here...but don't the staff own the systems? Are they not the ones entering the data??? Anyway, all that done, none off the passengers were given any idea of where their luggage could be and when it would arrive, and no one was given a penny's compensation for the delays, including the pregnant lady who by this point was extremely sick and tired, and had no luggage for herself or her two yr old, and her hand luggage had also been stolen. If I'm not wrong, if an airline loses your luggage, are they not supposed to give you atleast a toiletry allowance until you get your luggage? Well, my bags arrived 3 days late. I ended up spending a fortune on clothes, toiletries, etc...which I feel I should charge to Etihad Airways. Just one word for Etihad Airways - KEEP AWAY! They may have cheap deals, but you'll end up spending a whole lot more if you fly with them. And putting up with their impolite, untrained staff is the last thing you want to do when you travel!:ugh:

[Roidelstein]

That last post gives me a headache just looking at it!