A last minute plane swap meant my Boeing 777-300ER with Qsuites became an Airbus A330 with a much lower “first” class seat, but my short flight from Doha to Amman still turned out excellent.

Qatar Airways A330 First Class – My first impressions

After arriving from Tokyo, I enjoyed a breakfast feast at Al Safwa lounge… it’s been a few years since I’ve been to this lounge and I felt like it hadn’t had to everything changes. I will update my review, but I was quite happy with the food, service and even the spa area.

Qatar Airways is pretty bad at last minute plane swaps and I fell victim to that on this 2 hour 50 minute flight. My 777 with a 1-2-1 seat became an A330 with a 2-2-2 seat in the front (no direct aisle access for window seat passengers).

I put first class in quotes because Qatar Airways markets its regional flights in the Middle East as “first class”, which I never quite understood, but note that it provides access to the Al Safwa lounge, which which is a great step forward. above the Al Mourjan Lounge for business class passengers.

On board, Nour took care of me and provided excellent service throughout the flight. The seat next to me stays open, which helped.

A distinctive first class on Qatar Airways, compared to business class, is Arabic coffee and pre-flight dates.

After indulging in a feast in the Al Safwa lounge, I only ate before landing. It may have been a mistake, because I found the restoration lackluster and my omelet may have just been in the oven too long. It was served with lamb sambousek and halloumi cheese and frankly better than most meals I would receive on a flight of this length in the US (especially considering the fresh orange juice and berry smoothie) , but not a particularly memorable meal.

We landed on a pleasant day in Amman and I was soon departed and on my way to passport control.

CONCLUSION

It’s always nice when you can be “disappointed” to find yourself in an A330 with stretched seats, a large menu of dishes and excellent service on a flight of less than three hours. The flight went well in the sense that after an 11 hour flight on JAL followed by a 12 hour flight on Qatar Airways I was just ready to infiltrate a bit more…but Qatar Airways is impressing on both the short and long-haul sectors.

Oh, and a question for you aviation experts. Was it an A330-200 or A330-300? Without the registration number, how can you tell?