Qatar Airways Announces Return Of A380 & Pre-pandemic In-flight Services On Its Routes to London and Paris

Qatar Airways is returning their full inflight services to the London and Paris routes at the same time as the carrier returns the Airbus A380 to these same destinations.

Very short after this, the airline’s full in-flight services will gradually return to business as usual across the entire network starting January 2022 which will be something premium passengers can look forward to..

It’s no secret that it’s a huge pet peeve of mine that some hospitality service providers are still using Covid as an excuse to provide limited services to their customers and at least some have already returned to levels that were standard prior to the pandemic.

Currently Qatar Airways operates five daily flights to London and three daily flights to Paris to meet winter peak travel demand, all of which will feature the full “pre-pandemic” inflight service.

The airlines Chief Executive Akbar al Baker gave a statement and press release yesterday announcing the changes:

Qatar Airways marks a new milestone by resuming its pre-pandemic in-flight dining experience on its London and Paris routes, once again offering the full personalised services that the airline is renowned for around the world. Passengers in First and Business Class will no longer be offered meals on a serving tray, instead the food service will follow the fine-dining etiquette, where the silverware and chinaware will be presented elegantly on crisp white linen complete with candle light; the perfect setting at 40,000 feet.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said: “The past year and a half has been a challenging period for the aviation industry, however we grew stronger and became more resilient as time went by. Today, we are happy to mark a new chapter that brings us a step closer to the recovery of the pandemic. Passengers will now be able to further enjoy Qatar Airways’ world-renowned in-flight services onboard our flights between Doha, London and Paris with more destinations to follow.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline has applied rigorous additional health and safety measures on board its flights in an effort to minimise contact between crew and passengers. In Economy Class service, meals and cutlery were all served sealed as usual. First and Business Class meals were served covered on a tray instead of a table layup, and the cutlery roll was offered to passengers as an alternative to individual cutlery service. Qatar Airways also introduced single-use menu cards and sealed refreshing wipes during this time. All social areas including the lounge onboard the aircraft were closed adhering to social distancing measures, but will now reopen for premium passengers to access.

With a continued increase in passenger demand and flight capacity across the global network, Qatar Airways currently operates five daily flights to London Heathrow (LHR) and three daily flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) on Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft. …

To be honest I’m very surprised that Qatar Airways of all airlines took this much time to finally get their inflight services back on track. I’ve flown ANA and Lufthansa this summer as well as Japan Airlines last week. All of them offered a full service dining experience without any crazy protocols in place.

Glad to see QR is finally coming to their senses and that full services are coming back.

I find it hard to believe that cutting things such as proper cutlery presented on linen, a candle light as well as salt/pepper mill is making much of a difference in fighting Covid.

Many of the cutbacks throughout the hospitality industry have been the results of overly zealous accountants and department heads to see what can be cut and squeezed to save costs rather than evaluating what makes sense to protect passengers and crew.

Conclusion

Qatar Airways is finally bringing back premium fine dining services on their flights, first on routes to London and Paris following by the rest of the network starting in January 2022 which is just a few weeks away.

The carrier has kept proper, reliable operations throughout the past 18 months without mass cancelling flights and often it was QR that provided the only lifeline for people traveling to destinations such as Australia or even Thailand. It’s understandable that they said “we will keep flying but have to do something in terms of safety” during the first six months of that situation.

\We are now well past this and many carriers have resumed flying with previous service standards, even cruises have resumed. It’s time for all players in the industry to step up and get back to business rather than cutting costs and providing a lackluster experience.