Qatar Airways business class after four years: the QSuite, the passengers, the service standard, and whether it is worth the pressure

Tunis, four years in Doha, business class for the last two, and someone asked in another thread what the QSuite is like to work so I am doing it properly here.

The product

QSuite is the business class on the 777s and A350s, the ones with the doors and the quad configuration that turns four seats into a room. It is a genuinely good product and passengers know it, which means they arrive with expectations. On the older aircraft without QSuite the business cabin is still good but the service is less choreographed.

The service

Dine on demand. Passengers order what they want when they want it from a menu that runs the whole flight. In practice on a 13 hour sector to somewhere like Los Angeles you will serve a full meal in the first two hours to most of the cabin, then a rolling stream of individual orders, then breakfast. The galley has to be organised like a restaurant kitchen with one very small oven bank. The crew who are good at business are the ones who can hold twelve orders in their head and sequence them.

The standard is checked. Cabin managers do walk throughs and there are specific things they look for: tray angles, the way the napkin is placed, whether you knelt to take the order. It sounds petty written down. In the cabin it is the difference between a five star review and a complaint.

The passengers

Mostly fine. Business travellers who want to eat and sleep. A layer of people who have paid a lot and want to be seen to have paid a lot, and they are the ones who take the energy. And on some routes a group of very wealthy leisure passengers who treat the crew like household staff. Learning to be warm to those people without being a doormat is the skill and it takes a year to get.

The pressure

Real. In economy a bad flight is a tiring flight. In business a bad flight is a complaint with your name on it. I have had two in two years, both about things that were not in my control (a broken seat, a missing meal option), both went on my file, both were noted in my appraisal. That is the trade.

Is it worth it

For me yes. The flying is better (long haul, real layovers, fewer red eye turnarounds), the allowances are better, the promotion path goes through here. I like the work of doing something well and being noticed for it. If you prefer the anonymity of a big economy cabin, you will not enjoy business, and there is no shame in that. Some of the best crew I know have chosen to stay in economy.

Getting there

At Qatar the business course comes after a period in economy that has varied from 18 months to three years depending on the year. Same story as Emirates: appraisal record, attendance, being known to the right cabin managers. Nothing mysterious.

Questions welcome, especially from people about to do the course.