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Published: July 11th 2009
Touch down in Doha
QR018 LHR-DOH A33310 July 2009
After two months worth of medicals and waiting, I finally arrived in Doha on 20th June. I was met at the airport by a housing officer who took me to my apartment. It is in the Bin Mahmoud district which is a twenty minute drive from the airport. The apartment is very large and is brand new, so I am amongst the first batch of people to live in it. We all received a welcome hamper with so essential foods such as bread, milk and water as well as all the cutlery and crockery for the kitchen. Later on in the evening my housemate, Dan, moved in and he is from Ireland. The fully furnished apartment has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large living/dining room and a kitchen and is on the fourth floor.
On the Monday morning, a bus picked us up at 0715 and took us to QR Tower which is Qatar Airways’ headquarters and will be where all of our training is conducted. The training will take seven weeks and is split into three main modules, namely Cabin Services, Safety & Emergency Procedure and First Aid. After making our way to the
classroom on the seventh floor, we introduced ourselves to the rest of the class and some of the trainers introduced themselves to us. There are twenty of us in our training batch - AB439 - and we come from 14 different countries across four continents.
During the first few days we were taught a lot about the Arabic culture and the history of Qatar Airways, as well as learning the airport codes to all the destinations we fly to and some basic Arabic phrases. We then moved on to the ten-day Cabin Service module where, amongst other things, we were taught all the different meal services, cabin preparations, boarding procedures, bar services and the roles and positions of each crew member. We also had the joys of the Government and Qatar Airways medicals to contend with as if our pre-employment medicals were just a practice round.
On the first weekend we went to the ‘Watering Hole’ at the Sheraton hotel which was good, but at £6.50 a pint it was a far cry from university prices that I’m used to! Other than that, I’ve been exploring and working out the surroundings, but they keep us very
busy with the work load here, so we don’t have much free time during training. One thing I did see walking around is that their petrol is 12p per litre, yet water is 40p per litre...that does explain the abundance of Hummers and other 4x4s around town.
During the module, we visited the technical building at Doha Airport which is where all the pre-flight briefings take place and sat in on a briefing for a flight to Chennai, India (MAA). The crew discussed the operational aspects of the flights such as positions of crew, special passengers on board, service procedures and so on. The first officer then came in to introduce himself and told the crew the flight timings and altitudes and discussed the plan for arrival at Chennai. Our instructor then took us onto an empty Airbus A321 to show us the galleys and layout of the crew seats and some of the systems on board.
The highlights for most people was eating the airline food after we had practiced heating them in the aircraft ovens, preparing the carts and serving them to our instructor. We were taught all the various cocktails that Qatar serve
in economy as well as learning all about the wines served and all the service variations for the different routes or regions Qatar serve. All of this was done in the airline's Airbus A320 mock up which was extremely realistic.
Overall, the Cabin Service module was pretty intense and I’m still having difficulty getting used to working six days a week, but we all passed the final exam, so we made it through to the next module, Safety & Emergency Procedures. This module will be much more interesting for me as it's very similar to my dissertation topic, more on that in due course. But until the next time, it's goodbye from me...
P.S. Contact wise, email is the best bet, but my mobile is +974 3266979 and my postal address is:
Robert Farmer
Pigeonhole No: 01969
Cabin Crew Department
Qatar Airways, PO Box 23946
Doha, State of Qatar
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Bergie
non-member comment
Hi Rob! This all sounds really exciting! Too bad they didn't think as much of me as i would have wanted them to ;) I saw the introduction video, i hope you get a chance to enjoy some of those tourist attractions on your days off! I'll be looking forwrd to seeing the pictures :) Take care and always have fun!