Qatar Airways Boeing 787-9 Economy Class Review [WAW to DOH]

Airline: Qatar Airways (QR)
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9
Flight #: QR260
Route: Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) to Hamad International Airport (DOH)
Date: December 31, 2023
Duration: 5 hours, 25 minutes
Cabin and Layout: Economy class, 3-3-3
Seat: 25H
Cost: 20,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles + $23.45 in fees

My family spent our 2-week winter break trip chasing cold weather, castles, and Christmas markets across Denmark and Poland. I strategically routed our itinerary to end in Warsaw so we could catch a nonstop flight home to Doha, Qatar.

Join me as I detail my family’s experience on Qatar Airways’ 787-9 from Warsaw to Doha, with a specific look at the children’s meal, snacks, and activity pack.

Booking Qatar Airways

Given my available rewards balances, I reserved 4 one-way tickets via American Airlines AAdvantage for 20,000 miles each, plus $23.45 in fees. I purchased the remaining ticket via Qatar Airways Privilege Club for 24,500 Avios and 240.43 Polish złoty ($58.60) in fees. The same award was 22.5% more expensive in Avios with Qatar Airways, and the taxes were 2.5x greater, so it pays to check your redemption options.

The way I booked the awards was to put 1 adult and 3 kids on 1 reservation and 1 adult on another. I felt confident that I could arrange our seats together at check-in, but we were comfortable with the adults being separate if worse came to worse.

Cash prices for this route are around $550, and I felt I got a good overall redemption value of around 2.5 cents per mile/Avios.

I charged the taxes and fees to my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, earning 2x Capital One miles for the travel purchase. This is one of my favorite cards for flight purchases due to its travel insurance benefits for trip cancellation and interruption, trip delay, and lost luggage coverage.

The flight was initially scheduled as an Airbus A330-300 but was later changed to a Boeing 787-9.

Warsaw Chopin Airport

Check-In

My family arrived at Warsaw Chopin Airport via a Bolt taxi, around 50 zł (~$12) from the Old Town area. The ride was about 25 minutes, and we arrived at 1:10 p.m. for our 3:40 p.m. flight.

Qatar Airways offers 48-hour advance online check-in for flights not originating or arriving in the U.S. I had set an alarm and easily secured a group of 2 and 3 seats together in 1 row.

When we arrived at the check-in desk area, the Web Check-in Bag Drop line was significantly longer than the regular Economy Class line. After not moving much and watching the Economy Class line move fairly quickly, we swapped lines, checked 1 bag, and were on our way.

The agent advised us to give ourselves enough time for security and passport control. We had been looking forward to trying one of WAW’s Priority Pass lounges, but we heeded the agent’s warning and focused on getting to our gate.

It took just over an hour to make it from check-in to the gate, and we had about 20 minutes to spare before boarding was scheduled to begin.

Boarding

The flight boarded from gate 21N and was delayed by 10 minutes. We were in boarding zone 3 after business class and elites.

It’s worth mentioning that we saw transit passengers removed from the boarding line due to excessive carry-on luggage. This has happened to me before; Qatar Airways’ hand luggage policy is fairly strict, and staff may count and weigh your carry-on bags at check-in or the gate.

Hot Tip:

Qatar Airways allows for 1 carry-on bag weighing up to 15 pounds (7 kilograms). Any small personal items (no backpacks!) must also fit within this allowance if you have a standard trolley bag.

On Board Qatar Airways’ Boeing 787-9

Boarding a Dreamliner is a pretty comfortable experience; the economy cabin is spacious, and you never have to worry about having a place to put your bag.

The 787-9 has 30 seats in business (which is not a Qsuite cabin) in a 1-2-1 configuration and 281 seats in a split economy cabin in a 3-3-3 configuration.

Economy Class Cabin

We were seated in row 25 in seats D, E, and F in the center and H and J on the starboard side. I prefer the center seats when traveling with my kids, as the double-aisle seats make for easy bathroom access. We were seated in the forward economy cabin just a few rows ahead of the lavatories.

The economy seats were comfortable, with a 16.9- to 17.4-inch width.

Due to the strict hand baggage policy, I can’t think of a time I’ve had an issue storing a bag overhead on a Qatar Airways flight. The bins are deep and typically hold larger trolley bags. The storage over the sides is bigger than the center storage, accommodating 111 pounds vs. 56 pounds.

I like the Qatar Airways foldable tray table a lot — at half size, it’s great for storing a drink and snack, and if you don’t want the entire tray table right up against your torso, you can still place an entire meal tray on it.

The tray table does fully open, however, if you prefer more space for dining or working.

A feature I don’t recall seeing on previous flights was this drop-down device holder for phones and tablets. It had a rubbery surface to stabilize devices and was a perfect resting area for charging my phone.

The armrest had a standard recline button, and the seat could recline 6 degrees.

Another feature I appreciate on Qatar Airways flights is the adjustable headrest, which has a great range of motion for passengers of all heights.

The economy seats have a pitch of 31 to 32 inches. While the photo may look like I was a bit tight, my knees were not touching the seat back, so I could fully extend my legs comfortably.

Overhead were vents and lights for each seat. Departing from a chilly destination, we did not use the vents.

The flight departed at 3:52 p.m., and with a scheduled arrival of 11:05 p.m. Qatar time. The lights were dimmed during non-meal times to help with the timezone adjustment.

Food and Beverage

I enjoy browsing the flight menu, and Qatar Airways generally provides the menu weeks in advance when you manage your booking on its website.

This one looked like a winner, with an appetizer of grilled zucchini, tomato, and bulgur salad; an entrée of Thai beef green curry, roast turkey breast with cranberry jus, or rigatoni al funghi; and dessert of chestnut mousse with orange and chocolate crumble.

Drinks were served about 30 minutes after takeoff, and trash was removed about 30 minutes later.

The children’s meals were served at 5:09 p.m. Poland time. My kids have a love/hate relationship with these meals, so I try to review the adult menu with them ahead of time so they get to decide from those options or have a gamble at the kids’ meal.

This kids’ meal had a breaded piece of chicken over potatoes and vegetables, which looked simple and tasty enough, but all my co-pilot here ate was the 1 piece of watermelon shaped like an airplane. These meals tend to have at least 1 component that was not kid-tested, and that item here was a saucy pasta salad with lettuce, a hard-boiled egg wedge, carrots, and tomatoes.

General meal service followed at 5:30 p.m., but alas, no turkey was available on my side of the aircraft.

The Thai beef green curry wasn’t much to look at, but it was absolutely delicious. The rice was a touch buttery, the sauce was rich, and the vegetables were well-cooked. The bulgur had fresh herbs, and the dessert, which is pretty typical of Qatar Airways’ “desserts in a cup,” was fantastic.

This meal was a 10/10 for me.

My least favorite part of a long-haul flight is the service delay from meal delivery to clean-up, which was nearly an hour here. Inevitably, I have a child next to me who needs to use the bathroom, requiring all the trash and trays to be removed for them to exit the row. Qatar Airways softens this blow during trash service with a Biscoff cookie and drink, but this replaces lots of trash with a little bit of trash.

The kids then received a snack box around 6:54 p.m. (this was the Movie Treats service). In my experience, these boxes usually arrive before the hot meal, but they did not on this flight. Since my daughter had already had the bread from dinner removed, I wasn’t sure what was expected of this butter packet.

On previous long-haul flights, we’ve received a larger snack box in a plastic lunch box-style container that we never would take off of the plane. It would be full of candy, granola bars, and other less-healthy items, and by the time the hot meal arrived, the kids were so full of junk food that they never touched the healthier food.

I like that the airline attempted to serve the main first on this flight, but this snack box seemed unnecessary and packaged wastefully. My kids would have been just as happy with the bag of potato chips I was served around 7:40 p.m.

Amenities

At-Seat Amenities

A pillow, wrapped blanket, and over-the-ear headphones were set at the seat pre-boarding. This collection also included a pandemic-era protective kit with a face mask, hand sanitizing gel, and gloves.

Oryx Kids Club Young Traveller Pack

The children’s activity pack generally comes in some type of bag, and on this flight, it was a neoprene-style fanny pack. I’ve noticed that there is typically a kit for younger ages and one for older ages. This particular kit was for ages 3+.

Inside was a “Discover the Biomes!” game and colored pencils.

Bottom Line:

Since our family of 5 travels light and my 3 kids rarely play with these kits, I have started declining them to reduce waste.

Inflight Entertainment

The seat back boasts a 13-inch IFE touch screen (significantly better than the 777-200LR I flew from DOH-DFW in May 2023). This is hands-down my favorite IFE in the sky — the screen is huge and responsive, and Oryx One has an expansive selection of entertainment options.

The screens could adjust forward to improve the viewing angle if the person ahead of you reclined.

The bottom of the screen had inputs for headphones, USB-C, and USB-A. Combined with the device holder, this made charging my phone a breeze.

Wi-Fi

Privilege Club members have access to 1 hour of free Wi-Fi. Full-flight internet was available for $10 on board. You can save 20% by prepurchasing a voucher before your trip.

On my outbound flight to Europe, I had tremendous difficulty connecting to the Wi-Fi (so much so that the fees were refunded), so I didn’t bother with Wi-Fi on this short flight.

Lavatory

The sink and toilet were hands-free, and the sink had temperature controls.

The lavatory was very, very small and cramped. A changing table was above the toilet.

The sink area was clean and kept tidy throughout the flight. I also appreciated the fragrance mist to help make the space smell a little less bathroom-y.

Service

My interactions with the staff were generally pleasant. For a 5.5-hour flight, there were 4 rounds of food service for drinks, snacks, and the meal. This generates a lot of trash, and my experience could have been improved with a swifter removal of trays and trash. With such a large economy cabin to serve, I realize this is not always possible.

On both my outbound and inbound flights, I was keenly observant of flight attendants and their supervisors greeting elites at their seats, allowing them to preselect their meals, and checking in with them after meal service and at the end of the flight. These interactions were a notable touch of elevated service in the economy cabin.

Arrival

Our descent began at 10:02 p.m. Qatar time (2 hours ahead of Poland), even though the final trash service had not commenced. We touched down at 10:45 p.m. and parked at 10:56 p.m. I grumbled a bit after realizing we would be parked remotely and bussed to the terminal vs. directly deplaning at the terminal via a jet bridge.

We were off the plane by 11:11 p.m. and boarded the bus to the terminal. A whopping 20 minutes later, transit passengers were dropped at gate C36, and the remaining passengers were dropped at immigration 5 minutes later. From when we deplaned to when we arrived at immigration, 25 minutes had passed.

After clearing immigration and customs, my family made it into a taxi just before midnight, jubilantly counting down to the new year with our driver.

Final Thoughts

Flying with Qatar Airways in economy is almost always a great experience, and this flight from Warsaw to Doha was no exception. My husband and I thought the Oryx One programming and meals were excellent on this flight.

The airline makes a great effort to make the flight experience enjoyable for kids, from the activity pack to early child meal service to an abundance of treats and drinks. Save eating healthy for another day. Take my advice, and don’t even bother counting the juices or Fantas your kids are consuming — the freedom to let loose a bit has made some great memories for my kids.

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