At the time of my flight, Qatar Airways only used the Air France Business Class lounge at San Francisco International Airport. Amazingly this lounge has stayed open almost through the whole pandemic – quite an achievement. However, the rather sparse pre-pandemic food spread and drinks service had been reduced to an even smaller offering.
Luckily SFO has a number of airport restaurants that participate in Priority Pass and an American Express Centurion lounge. So there is no shortage of options for a weary and hungry traveler.
Irrops handling with Qatar Airways
While waiting at the lounge it became clear that the inbound flight from Doha would be about two hours late. This would disrupt my connection in Doha to Nairobi. The system had automatically rebooked me through Zanzibar. While I love Zanzibar – this wasn’t my ideal routing into Nairobi.
I managed to get the attention of one of the agents at check-in after I went back out from security again. She promised to find me a seat on a better connection direct to Nairobi (which I had booked originally) while I was en route to Doha.
QSuites / Qatar Airways A350 Business Class
Qatar Airways QSuites Business Class is my favorite Business Class in today’s market and the A350 is my favorite plane – so what could go wrong? The QSuites on the A350 come in a slightly staggered 1-2-1 configuration. About half the seats face backward (i.e. towards the end of the plane) and about half forwards.
While flying backward sounds weird, it actually improves flying comfort, especially when sleeping due to the tilt of the plane (planes always fly a few degrees ‘nose up’).
I had initially opted for a single QSuite on the left, but the cabin filled with a number of small children. I might be biased, but my own children usually love flying and were very quiet even at a small age. I can’t say the same for many other small children that fly Business…