UNSUNG HEROES OF QATAR AIRWAYS
DOHA
BUSINESS CLASS LOUNGE
When one
talks about service aboard a flight on long haul journeys, one is not talking
about USA based airlines or European ones. With individual exceptions (young
recent recruits such as CLT based AA FAs, Nicole and Isabel or the MIA based Canadian
Jamie), USA based airlines are not interested in service. On a recent short
flight of 50 minutes on Sri Lankan Airways from Cochin to Colombo, we were
served a hot meal in the Economy Class! The Air France FAs are there to look
good, God Forbid if you wanted a glass of water! SE Asian Airlines are a cut
above and all legacy airlines from the region outshines the USA/Europe based
legacy airlines.
I have flown
a fair bit on the long haul flights of Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways and
Etihad Airways and I am a little partial to QR.
I have no
experience with Emirates Airways, and I will rate my experience of lounges in
this particular order:
Doha Qatar
Airways
Istanbul
Turkish Airways
Abu Dhabi
Etihad Airways
On this trip
east, BRU to DOH portion was on a 787 and Fay from Manila and Bandana from
Sikkim were in charge of the service. Whenever there is a lull in service, I
like to chat with them and get their stories. Thank you Fay and Bandana.
When I arrive
at DOH, I go into the Lounge and position myself at the Café/Tea Bar. There is
a cook to order (from fresh ingredients on display) restaurant, as well as a
Buffet restaurant which also has a la carte service.
All these are
well and good but the unsung heroes, whom you very seldom hear praised about,
are the people who work in these places, always pleasant and polite and all of
them with their own stories to tell, if a traveler is willing to listen.
I could have
caught an earlier flight to COK from DOH, but I wanted to spend some time in
the lounge and relax a little bit, to catch up with the lack of rest of the
past week in Belgium and France.
As I sat
down, I was greeted by Aksam Abu Tahir from Sri Lanka, the person I have known
the longest at the Lounge at DOH. Almost always we have coincided at the
Lounge, for which I am grateful. He is one of the managers of the Café/Tea Bar.
Always attentive, I wonder at the modern lifestyle that brings two people like
him and me, in this strange but welcoming ambiance of the QR Lounge at Doha.
There are
many others, all from South Asian countries, and the department of Hygiene
seems to be firmly in the hands of Bangladeshi young men. Polite to a fault,
these young men are happy to be working, as they had “fled” unemployment,
political instability, and general poverty of the country. I noticed that all
of them spoke English.
My own
thoughts, as an Anthropologist, is to give their individual stories a meaning.
I ask about their working conditions, what they hoped to do and whether or not
they are happy in Qatar. Uniformly they say, yes we are happy to be here. It is
no wonder that Bangladesh and Philippines are two strong economies in the
region because the income is depended not on production but the unfailing
support of their sons and daughters toiling under the sun of the Gulf Region. (In
most cases inside well air conditioned buildings). Both these nationalities are
also found where labour is needed such as Malaysia and Singapore, as well as
Hong Kong and Japan.
Would it be
better for them to appear at the doors of European Union as refugees or work
hard and send money to rebuild their countries? Here they are not migrants, but
workers on contracts. Arab societies have always been closed societies, in fact
this extends to many other Moslem countries as well (Malays are much more
closed than Indonesian Moslems, reflecting their respective colonial pasts and
the rigidity of current political systems). This closet nature extends to
Bangladesh itself, and you can see it analyzing their treatment of the Rohingya
Bangla refugees. Bangladeshis at DOH are cheerful and are glad to be of service
Salmon Suny
from Bangladesh welcomed me as I waited to have a long shower before boarding
my next flight. He made sure that I had all that was needed for a leisurely
shower: Towels, soap, shaving utensils. He would repeatedly ask me, do you need
tooth brush? Do you need a shaver? A comb? A nod of the head, and everything
appears, all packed nicely and ready for use. The shower room was spic and span
clean, so that when I arrived at my destination COK the next morning at 8 am, I
did not look bedraggled
Thank you
Salman
There were
other attendants at the Men’s Toilet, a young tall Bangladeshi with receding
hair whom I recognized from a previous visit, and Raju whom I met this time.
They were eager in their service and chatted if you showed an interest,
otherwise were full of smiles and silence. No other airline outside this region
would provide this level of service. Thank you, HE Abu Bakr, the CEO of QR!
These are the
unsung heroes of QR that makes the total flight experience more comfortable,
human and meaningful.
FAs on the
flight from BRU TO DOH Q 196 on 16.2.2016 were charming and lovely to talk to.
Fay the lead FA was from Manila, closer to Clark Airport (QR lands there), she
has worked 7 years with QR. Bandana (the meaning of the name is the one that
binds people together) was from Sikkim and was very sweet.
I
have never seen the same FA twice (there are thousands at the employ of QR) but
I am always hoping. But our unsung heroes at the Business Class Lounge, including
Aksam Abu Tahir I see them almost always when I transit through or I can send
my personal greetings to them through their colleagues.
I
thank them for making my journey a pleasant one.
PS
As I was leaving the restaurant, Aksam appears and escorts me to my gate which
happened to be a long ways distant, 20. He engaged a golf cart to take me and
some others to the gates at E! The conductor of the vehicle, smartly attired
was Mahares from Tunisia. We had a brief chat about the good relations Cuba
enjoys with Tunisia (I know the man who was sent there to set up the embassy!)
The
QR 516 to COK from DOH was a blur in memory because of the tiredness but did
manage to chat a little with Zeny, the FA from Philippines. Just before landing
at COK as the sun was coming up, she especially made a Chai to wake up my
drowsy body. Selamat, Zeny.
