Ouch: Qatar Airways' 12 Hour Flight To Nowhere

Ouch: Qatar Airways’ 12 Hour Flight To Nowhere

Published: August 12, 2019

Oh my…

Today’s Qatar Airways flight QR816 was scheduled to fly from Doha to Hong Kong. The flight was supposed to depart at 7:35AM, and the “block time” (gate-to-gate) was scheduled to be eight hours.

Well, the journey time ended up taking 12 hours (or is projected to, at least), with all passengers ending up in… Doha!

As I wrote about earlier, Hong Kong Airport was shut down today due to protests. However, they were still supposed to accept arrivals, but just not allow departures. So most airlines with flights enroute to Hong Kong continued to Hong Kong, since they could land safely.

However, that wasn’t the case for all airlines. QR816 decided to turn around back to Doha while over Bangladesh, well over halfway into the flight.

What could cause them to do this?

They could have decided that it’s easiest to look after passengers and rebook them from their hub airport, rather than from an outstation
They could have decided that the risk of getting the crew and plane stuck in Hong Kong was too great, since we’re ultimately not sure how long the airport closure will last
Diverting to somewhere nearby wouldn’t have made their lives any easier, since everyone would have still had to find a way out

So the airline made the decision for the flight to return to Doha. However, the plane apparently didn’t have quite enough fuel (or at least not enough fuel reserves), so the flight ended up diverting to Muscat first, before continuing back to Doha.

The flight is enroute from Muscat to Doha right now, and should land shortly after 7PM, nearly 12 hours after it departed this morning.

What a long and frustrating day for passengers and crew alike. I can’t blame Qatar Airways for this decision. Ultimately I’m sure some passengers were happy about this decision, given that they may have had connecting flights and would have been stranded. Meanwhile I’m sure this is incredibly frustrating for those who were returning home to Hong Kong.

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SS Guest

August 16, 2019, 5:49 am

I was flying out from Copenhagen to Doha, Doha to Hong Kong (QR 816) at 14 Aug 2019. When I checked in at Copenhagen Counter, I was told that QR 816 was cancelled; then, I was rerouted as Doha to Jakarta, Jakarta to Hong Kong. The whole journey extended for 9 hours. The most funny thing is that eventually QR816 was resumed and I was not told / informed at all. Any idea if I can claim Qatar for compensation ? As of now, I receive zero coupon or any monetary benefits from Qatar.

‼ 0

S Guest

August 14, 2019, 11:44 am

I was also on this flight, unfortunately, in economy. Like Deus and many other passengers around me, I found out about the diversion from the flight map and just as wifi became unavailable over India. Much room for improvement regarding communication (e.g. the fact that we were flying back to Doha, updated departure time), although I appreciate that it was hard to have anything confirmed in such circumstances. To QR's credit, we were put in hotels and given meal vouchers. I was put on QR818 on 14 August and landed in Hong Kong at around 5pm (some 43 hours after my scheduled arrival), although I know that some other passengers were routed to HKG through MNL (although I am not sure whether they were also originally on QR816 or another flight).

x Guest

August 14, 2019, 12:12 am

@J S They (CX) do have a flight from Dubai to Bahrain :) But your excellent point still stands

Dennis Gold

August 13, 2019, 8:32 pm

@CR, it's incredible also to think that the Scoot flight had enough fuel on board for such a return!

J S Guest

August 13, 2019, 4:44 pm

@Tom R (and others): The difference between CX and other airlines is that, for CX, when HKG is closed, their planes are grounded regardless of whether the plane is at HKG or any other airport. If HKG is closed, the plane is going to sit on the ground regardless of whether it is at HKG or JFK (CX doesn't fly anywhere besides HKG from JFK (or most (any?) other airports). Their parking fees at HKG are probably lower.

Ouch: Qatar Airways’ 12 Hour Flight To Nowhere

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