Qatar Airways duty travel

[LTU330]

It looks like I might be paying a visit to Shanghai next week, and one of the options for flying back is with Qatar Airways as they are now in One World. My company (airberlin) no longer endorses business class for duty travel, but seeing as I am looking at around 19 hours including a two hour stopover in Doha to get back to Munich, I was wondering how accomodating the Qatar Staff are to providing an upgrade for duty staff if space is available. Thanks for any info.

[Gulfstreamaviator]

But would be very happy to be proved wrong.

glf

[mmorel]

are you going for leisure or duty?If there is no space available in economy class then they will upgrade you in business

[LTU330]

It's duty travel. I fly out there on one of our 737s (that will be fun !), wait a few days for another one to fly over, then I have to fly back. Maybe I will take my chances with Lufthansa instead. I can buy a standby business ticket from them. I would rather use a couple of hundred euros of my own money than spend 19 hours more than likely sat between other passengers in row 100 :) Oh for the days of duty travel being J class.

[NG_Kaptain]

Why not use that Abu Dhabi airline that your company partners with. All our duty travel is confirmed business class, maybe your staff travel department can work something out.

[TURIN]

Not nice to hear that your employer expects you to travel on duty but not provide the expected level of travel.

I am also working for a One World partner airline and I am entitled to J class travel on duty. If I don't get it, I won't travel.

Do you have the option of telling them to poke it?

[Captaintcas]

I would tell them to stuff that duty where the sun never shines if no Business class seat is provided.:mad:

[NG_Kaptain]

The "other GCC airline" is very good about that. All duty travel on company aircraft is confirmed J and all flights on other carriers for sectors over four hours likewise...Otherwise you don't go.

[EYZ]

If your Air Berlin, wouldn't you go with your sister airline down the road? The one with no pprune name?

You'd get ID biz with them too, wouldn't you?

[LTU330]

OK, a quick update. Apparently I will get Business Class on Qatar Airways. The use of Economy only relates to non Oneworld airlines. I don't know how that would work with the other Airline that we are tied in with that we can't mention, but many guys here have been upgraded with them even on Standby leisure trips. Anyway, it will be J class and one of the sectors is a 787, so something to either dread or look forward too !

SpamCanDriver:

I never said that I wanted to by a Standby ticket and get an upgrade. I was asking about either getting Business Class on a Duty Ticket (which is completely different to Standby), or buying a Standby Business ticket on Lufthansa or the other airline, which I am perfectly entitled to do.

Turin:

Maybe you work for the airline I used to work at for 13 years, London Airways :) I did also consider using my once per year free Club Ticket, but I don't think my Wife would be too pleased if I wasted it on a work trip !

[NG_Kaptain]

So nice if you are on duty travel and they tell you that you must travel economy. If they don't book us business class we go home, and we don't have a union. What does Air Berlin do? Maybe you should join the other 737 pilots and come over to the 777.

[LTU330]

Just to update this, I got business class on both legs (PVG-DOH-MUC) and I have to say that the service on both was excellent. The one thing that did suprise me was there was no full meal on the PVG-DOH flight which is 10.5 hours, but I guess that is due to the very late departure time (00:10) and the early arrival into DOH (05:30). For me the 777 seat was far comfier than the 787 aswell, although maybe as I had already been up for over 24 hours by the time I boarded the DOH-MUC flight that could have been part of the problem.

[King on a Wing]

Feels good to hear that LTU330.

Always good to get positive feedback every once in a while from a reliable source.
Negative feedback is always freely available.
Thanks for the input.
Off now..