Around the World in 100 Hours: Qatar Airways Business Class Colombo to Doha

Introduction
United Club San Francisco, International Terminal
United Business Class San Francisco to Seoul
Asiana Airlines Business Class Lounge Seoul
Korean Air Lounge and Singapore SilverKris Lounge Seoul
Singapore Business Class Seoul to Singapore
Ambassador Transit Lounge Singapore
Singapore SilverKris Lounge Singapore
Changi Airport Free Singapore Tour
Singapore Business Class Singapore to Colombo
Transiting Colombo
Lotus and Araliya Lounges Colombo
Qatar Airways Business Class Colombo to Doha
Qatar Airways First Class Premium Terminal Doha
Qatar Airways First Class Doha to Dubai
Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai
Emirates First Class Dubai to London Heathrow
British Airways Concorde Room London Heathrow
British Airways Galleries First Lounge and Club World Lounge London Heathrow
British Airways First Class London Heathrow to San Francisco

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Qatar 305
Colombo (CMB) to Doha (DOH)
Monday, May 27th, 2013
Depart: 4:30am
Arrive: 6:50am
Duration: 4h 50m
Aircraft: A321
Seat: 1A

In the lounge, we saw the screen say final boarding for our flight, so we headed to the gate. At Colombo, you have to reclear security at the gate, and since there were two flights departing at roughly the same time using the same security checkpoint, there was quite a long line to just get to the gate.

Luckily, all of the people in front of us seemed to be going to the other flight, and the people working the security checkpoint asked for all passengers boarding our flight to go to the front of the line. But once we cleared security, we found that the flight wasn’t boarding at all, and it would be a good 20 minutes before boarding even started. I guess “final boarding” doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in Colombo as it does in the US.

Business class on this flight was very similar to domestic business class on a red eye. Recliner-style seats, and breakfast was served either after departure or prior to arrival.

Since I hadn’t eaten anything in Colombo, I decided to have breakfast right after departure (and since I didn’t want to spoil my appetite before getting to the First Class Lounge in Doha).

I don’t think I’d ever had wood apple before. The wood apple smoothie smelled disgusting to me, but I thought it tasted pretty good. The rest of the breakfast was perfectly acceptable.

What distinguished this flight from a domestic business class flight was the service. The lead flight attendant did a good job personalizing the service, introducing herself to everyone in the cabin and generally being friendly, even if things weren’t 100% polished. So while the hard product left a little to be desired if you’re trying sleep, I thought that the soft product was pretty great. That being said, I had an easy time getting a couple hours of sleep, and before I knew it, we were descending into Doha.