Today I’m reviewing a short 1 hour flight I took with Qatar Airways between Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The aircraft in question is the infamous Boeing 737 MAX 8, which also happens to be the newest aircraft in Qatar Airways’ fleet. I also had the chance to experience Abu Dhabi’s brand new Terminal A, which only opened 2 weeks before this trip. This ticket had me connecting through Doha on my way back to London (which I’ll also be reviewing soon). And if you want to see more please feel free to check out my Youtube Review below:
Qatar Airways Overview and Ticket Details
I paid 28,500 Avios points + £112.90 through the British Airways website for this one way flight from Abu Dhabi to London via Doha. Usually this route would cost between £300-400 with the likes of British Airways or Etihad. So value-wise it’s just okay. I just wanted a reason to use up my points though so wasn’t too worried about the value.
We ended up departing 30 min late and arriving 10 min late. So more or less on time, but as I’ll discuss in the next section, the boarding process was a mess. And on arrival it took almost another 30 min to reach the terminal since we had a really remote bus gate. Overall, I was unimpressed with Qatar Airways’ efficient on this flight. Especially considering we started boarding about 1 hour before departure.
Abu Dhabi Airport’s New Terminal A
As mentioned earlier, Abu Dhabi recently opened the massive new Terminal A, as they plan to close the old terminals. Terminal A is positioned between the two runways, so a lot more efficient for taxiing aircraft. And as you can see from the picture above, it’s kind of shaped like a starfish that’s missing one leg.
At the time of reviewing it has only been opened for 2 weeks (November 2023). Because of that it actually felt very empty as I’m guessing many airlines were still using the old terminal at that point in time. The terminal layout consists of one main central area with all the gates down the 4 legs of the building. There’s already plenty of shops, though when I visited (it was only about 6pm) many of the shops and restaurants were already closed. I assume these will open more as the terminal gets busier.
There’s also a pretty impressive pay-to-use lounge, which I got free entry too with my Priority Pass. Check out my
There’s also a pretty impressive pay-to-use lounge, which I got free entry too with my Priority Pass. Check out my full review of that lounge here.
The gate areas at this airport are also great. Every gate is massive, even for the relatively small 140 people aboard our flight. There’s lots of seating options as you can see below. With recliners, private armchairs, standard seats, all with places to charge your devices.
The Plane & Seat
Our Aircraft today was a 1.7 year old Boeing 737 MAX 8 registered A7-BSE. This was actually my first time flying on the 737 MAX. And whilst I have no doubts about its safety, I do think I’ll try to avoid it going forward. Firstly because I don’t want to support Boeing and all their shenanigans, and secondly, it’s just not a very comfy plane. Based on a 60 year old design it’s just outdated with a cramped cabin. Much prefer the A320neo (or any wide body). Qatar Airways fit 8 Business Class seats and 168 Economy seats onto this aircraft.
For a Boeing 737, this seat is actually pretty great. There is plenty of legroom, a plush adjustable headrest, it was spotlessly clean and there’s a phone/tablet holder in the back of the seat. That being said, compared to the rest of Qatar Airways’ fleet it’s a bit disappointing. But it’s hard to compare long haul and short haul aircraft directly.
Legroom is great, I’m 5’6″ so fit quite easily into most seats. According to QR it has 30″ of seat pitch and 16.6″ of width, which is just average. Though it does feel more spacious than those dimensions suggest.
One this I did love is this fold-out device holder. You can prop your phone and tablet here whilst watching anything. Definitely a downgrade over a proper tv screen. But at least you won’t have to worry about your arm getting sore holding up your phone. You can connect your phone to their inflight WiFi and stream a good amount of content for free. I’ll cover that later in this review…
Snack Service
A bonus of flying pretty much any Asian airline is that they’ll feed you for free, even on this 48m flight. Since the flight is so short, it’s just a simple Arabic Mezze platter. You get 2 bits of (heated!) pita bread, humous, rice and some sort of yoghurt dip. And a bottle of water. The fact that they heated up the bread on such a short flight is impressive. (I did also notice the crew were very busy throughout the flight so props to them for the hard work).
If you login to Qatar’s website to manage your booking before flying, you can also view the menu. Surprisingly they actually offer a huge range of drinks. You can see their menu below:
Everything Else
They may not have actual tv screens, but they make up for it with the brilliant Oryx One Streaming Service. You just need to connect your device to the plane’s WiFi and the homepage will open automatically. You can also use it during boarding, takeoff, flight and landing.
Streaming speed was flawless and the website worked very smoothly. The selection of movies and tv was fine, though not as extensive as what you’ll see on long haul flights. You should still be able to find something worth watching though. Best of all though is that it means you can use your own headphones. So you don’t have to worry about the terrible sound quality of most Economy headphones. It also has an inflight map!
My only real complaint with this flight is more of just a general complaint of Qatar Airways… Many of their process just seem very innefficient. First of all, they started boarding 1 hour early, with Business Class first. But a group of Business Class passengers hadn’t showed up yet. Rather than let us Economy people on, a gate agent went off to find the Business passengers.
After seeing this gate agent rush all over the place, eventually they found the passengers and escorted them to the gate, whilst all the economy passengers were waiting around. I understand them letting Business passengers on first, but in this case it just seemed silly. I timed it and it took over 15 min to find these stragglers. They could have boarded the whole plane in that time but instead refused to let anyone on before the last business class passenger.
Then on arriving at Doha of course we had a bus gate as the huge new airport they’ve built somehow doesn’t have space for all the planes. The taxi to the gate took over 15 min, then we waited on the plane for about 15 min before a bus came. Then it was another 15 min bus drive to the terminal. All told from touchdown to entering the terminal it took over 45 min, almost as long as the entire flight.
Hamad International Airport itself was great though. It’s huge with loads to see and do. Especially the forest area and copious amount of lounges.
Final Thoughts
Overall I think Qatar Airways’ Boeing 737 Max 8 is pretty solid. For a short haul flight that is. Qatar often use their larger 787s & A350 on short haul flights too so the 737 is a huge downgrade over those. It has smaller & less comfortable seats with no IFE system. But it’s one of the better 737s I’ve flown on. The Arabic Mezze was tasty and the WiFi streaming system worked really well.
My main complaint is how incredibly inefficient the boarding and disembarking process was. I’m also disappointed that Qatar built such an amazing new airport but somehow half of the flights here still use bus gates. It kind of puts me off connecting through Qatar when you can spend almost an hour after landing to taxi to the gate then wait for a bus to take you to the main terminal.
More from me…
Please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:
- British Airways Boeing 787 from Hong Kong to London – Avoid Economy Class!
- The Sofitel Luxembourg Review – Chic Business Hotel
- The Plaza Premium Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 2 – Overcrowded
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- The Platinum Card – You Receive 80,000 Membership Reward points after spending £10,000 in the first 6 months plus a further 25,000 after 15 months: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGMhtY?XLINK=MYCP
- British Airways Card: You Receive 10,000 Avios after spending £1,000 in the first 3 months: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGB3NS?XLINK=MYCP