sn26567 wrote:Ozzie1969 wrote:BRU-DOH Qatar Airways A7-ACK Airbus A330-202
DOH-MNL Qatar Airways A7-BAS Boeing 777-3DZER
MNL-CEB Philippine Airlines RP-C7775 Boeing 777-3F6ER
TAC-MNL Zest Air RP-C8995 Airbus A320-232
MNL-DOH Qatar Airways A7-AEO Airbus A330-202
DOH-BRU Qatar Airways A7-AEF Airbus A330-202
How long was your transit time in Doha?
And what is your experience of Qatar Airways, considered as one of the best airlines of the world?
Transit time in Doha was under 4 hours on each occasion, so if you include the time it takes to get off the plane, get on the bus to the terminal, find your gate for the next flight, and priority boarding because I was in a family group that went from a 75-year old grandfather to a 1-year old baby, and then getting back on a bus to get to your aircraft : just a little over 2 hours of waiting, really. The terminal in Doha is quite nice, although there's nothing to do, the shops are highly overpriced (aren't they always?) and the toilets are dirty. The travelling to and fro by (overcrowded) bus is the real nuisance, though.
Qatar Airways : airline of the year 2011 & 2012, but I don't see why. Not that they are bad, far from it, but they were still not in the league of the likes of Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines imho. On each of the 4 flights on Qatar Airways, there were problems with the inflight entertainment system, ranging from not working at all to sound barely audible in the headphones. I must admit we were always seated near the wings, and the noise was quite overwhelming, except on the Boeing 777 which was definitely the more comfortable ride in terms of noise and seating comfort.
The food was nothing extraordinary, just your usual airline food that gets half eaten at best, but I do have to single out the excellent strawberry pancake they gave me for breakfast on the flight between Doha and Brussels!
My sons were very happy to get Spongebob Squarepants goodies on each trip : backpacks, colouring books, even a plastic Spongebob suitcase filled with candy. We even got Qatar Airways diapers for our youngest on the flight from Doha to Brussels!
Conclusion : no major complaints, but they are not my airline of the year.
A small word on Zest Air, an airline that perhaps not many people on this forum have flown yet.
I had flown Philippine Airlines when going from Manila to Cebu. It had cost me 16,000 pesos for a group of 6, and as usual my Mastercard didn't work at the PAL ticketing office at NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport, that's Manila
), so I had to pay cash.
Flying back home I decided to use the airport in Tacloban, as we were visiting my wife's relatives in Ormoc City on the island of Leyte (which is also where Tacloban is situated), and the airport in Ormoc has stopped doing any scheduled flights at all, sadly.
Also we didn't want to repeat the boat trip between Cebu and Ormoc from our onward journey where we got caught in a violent storm and ended up filling more than our fair share of "motion sickness bags".
I went into one of the many booking offices in Ormoc City (they've exploded in number since we were last there 4 years ago). That office was emblazoned with "Cebu Pacific" at the front, but they also sold tickets for Zest Air and Airphilexpress (formerly known as Air Philippines).
They tried to get me on a Cebu Pacific flight first, but I sort of had my heart set on Zest Air, as I had never flown them before and wanted to give them a try. Zest Air is the new name of Asian Spirit, and I remember I tried to get on an Asian Spirit flight from Manila to Ormoc City in 2005 but that service had just been discontinued. Also I know from experience that Cebu Pacific flights are very popular and therefore nearly always full.
I got tickets on a Zest Air flight for just under 10,000 pesos, which again confirms that PAL is really an expensive airline, no matter how comfortable and spacious their domestic terminal at NAIA is compared to the scruffy and overcrowded terminal Cebu Pacific use there.
To my disappointment it turned out that the brand new airport that they boasted about building 4 years ago at Tacloban seems to have fallen by the wayside (even the miniature model of it has disappeared from the lobby), so we were still crammed into the small waiting area for the only gate there is. All planes stop right in front of it and simply make a U-turn when they depart.
A note of warning here : the girl at the ticketing office in Ormoc had told me that we were only allowed 10 kgs of checked in luggage each, and only for the ones paying full price, so my 2 sons weren't allowed any checked in luggage at all. Fortunately she also told me that I would have to pay a mere 168 pesos for every 5 kgs overweight, so that wasn't too bad.
At Tacloban Airport our luggage was weighed and we were 30 kgs overweight, and were then told that we had to pay 250 pesos PER KILO overweight. Quite a bit more expensive than we had been led to believe.
When we got on board it turned out that the flight was less than a quarter full, so boarding was quite fast. The only annoying thing was that we had to pay for inflight drinks. The good thing was that my eldest son got sleepy from drinking a can of Zest-O juice (judging from the name you can tell the background of the airline, which is owned by the same company that makes the Zest-O juices and drinks).
The flight itself was uneventful, and we had some nice views of the many Philippine islands on our flight, which lasted a little over an hour.
When we arrived in Manila our suitcases were the first to arrive on the carrousel, and we were still last ones to go through because our 5 checked in suitcases comprised about a third of all checked in luggage, as most people seemed to be travelling with hand luggage only.
I would definitely fly Zest Air again whenever I'm in the Philippines. They are maybe a little bit more expensive than Cebu Pacific, but as I was travelling with both my elderly parents and my two young sons, I preferred not to fly like cattle. (Cebu Pacific do have frequent offers, but only for Filipinos who actually live in the Philippines, as discrimination of foreigners seems to be okay here when it comes to flying. Not that Filipinos as a rule are biased in that way, quite on the contrary actually.)
