OMG someone get me on this flight please!!! I'm presently slowly enroute to the Middle East in order to catch Qatar Airways' inaugural A350 flight from Doha to Frankfurt on January 15. I had the opportunity to fly the Qatar Airways A350 for a 45 minute media flight during their delivery ceremony in Toulouse a…
Continue reading: I WANT TO REDEEM MILES FOR THIS FLIGHT SO BAD!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I'd do whatever it takes to have a seat on this flight. Hang up, call again. MANY TIMES
Fascinating for sure!
If only you could get on that plane - would have made hell of a trip report for sure! An A350 all for Ben :)!
After lots of research (read: nerding out) I'm sorry to tell you that this is most probably a glitch, since QR's only A359, A7-ALA, is has been doing training flights DOH-SHJ-DOH every 1.5 hours starting January 1st. It has been flying every 1.5 hours!!! They wouldn't get it out of the training cycle for their majesties. Well, unless it's a training flight to LHR on the 12th. But HIGHLY doubt they can use such a busy, slot-restricted airport for training.
Hi Ben,
QR will position the A350 in LHR for 2-3 days for noise tests. Then they have a press flight on the 12th in LHR and then at 14:00 A7-ALA will transfer back to DOH for the Inaugural. So not a normal flight, trying to get on it myself 🙂 See you!
Ben,
Please stop posting during the work day. It's hugely distracting to me because I can't keep my mind on my work as I immediately flip over to read your latest post.
😉
Ben,
I don’t think the planes the Qatar Royal Family uses are regualr Qatar Airlines planes.
"Qatar Amiri Flight is a VIP airline owned and operated by the government of Qatar. It operates worldwide charters on demand and caters exclusively to the royal family of Qatar and other VIP government staff. The vast majority of its fleet is painted in the standard livery of the commercial flag carrier of Qatar, Qatar Airways."
If you could use points to book a flight on one of the Amari Flight planes - now that would be something.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_Amiri_Flight
@Lucky, actually do keep posting during the work day! I unfortunately can only read your blog during that time since I try not to be in front of a computer when I'm outside of work. 😉
You're one of the luckiest people I know (heck you somehow got EY to drop the first leg of your PNR to get on EY A380 inaugural) so I wouldn't be surprised to see you on that LHR-DOH flight! 🙂 Safe travels!!!
Give them a call and try and book over the phone. It should be in their system
The "Royal Family shopping trips" are actually operated by a dedicated fleet of VIP-interior aircraft that are not even operated by Qatar Airways. Instead, they are operated by "Qatar Amiri Flight". Most (but not all) of the aircraft are in the Qatar Airways livery, including a C-17.
@ Ben Granucci -- Interesting. Could have sworn at some point they took an A340 to SFO and left it sitting there for a while, no?
Its very possible. Qatar Amiri Flight has 3 A340s in their fleet. 2 of them still have the old Qatar Airways livery, the third has the new Qatar Airways livery.
http://www.planespotters.net/Airline/Qatar-Amiri-Flight
including a C-17.
The 4 A340s, the 2 747s (with a 747-800 BBJ on on order... Ok, that's cool. But, the C-17? For cars presumably. That really takes it to a whole new level.
Down to 3 award seats. Did you grab one? I tried from my end as well and failed.
Could this simply be the positioning flight for the A350 to be at Doha before the inaugural commercial flight?
@ Lucky - Does this answer your question?
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/553856822852194304
@ Ed -- Awesome, please let us know how it goes! Couldn't make it work in the end for me.