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Currently 30,000ft in the air on 14 hour flight Melbourne/Doha. With Qatar. 7 hours in tried to return seat (business) to upright. Seat malfunction. Crew eventually managed to return to upright but now I’m left with it like that for next 7 hours and I’d prefer to be able to lie down again and attempt a bit more sleep! But probably couldn’t do that now as all the fuss means I’ve moved from drowsy to wide awake…
They’ve said looks like full electronic malfunction which can only be sorted on the ground.
Has this sort of thing happened to anyone before? To be honest, I’m a bit annoyed as I paid 2x Avios for this flight…
I’m trying to calm down with ideas of compensation. Any thoughts? Flight (one way) was 120,000 Avios…
Can you not be moved to another seat?
From what I’ve read (not personal experience), you’re best to lodge a complaint with the cabin manager while on the flight.
Currently 30,000ft in the air on 14 hour flight Melbourne/Doha. With Qatar. 7 hours in tried to return seat (business) to upright. Seat malfunction. Crew eventually managed to return to upright but now I’m left with it like that for next 7 hours and I’d prefer to be able to lie down again and attempt a bit more sleep! But probably couldn’t do that now as all the fuss means I’ve moved from drowsy to wide awake…
They’ve said looks like full electronic malfunction which can only be sorted on the ground.
Has this sort of thing happened to anyone before? To be honest, I’m a bit annoyed as I paid 2x Avios for this flight…
I’m trying to calm down with ideas of compensation. Any thoughts? Flight (one way) was 120,000 Avios…
Ask to move to another seat or first, as you NEED to sleep.
Alternative seat not possible – all occupied. Also sat with my son.
Make sure you ask them to move you and your son to another flat bed seat (or just ask for you then remind them due to young age of son he needs to be very near you).
Get their refusal. Which it sounds like you will get unless the plane has First seats to move you into. At this point ensure you are speaking to Cabin Services Director. Explain how you need to sleep, can’t do it sitting up, do they have any other ideas. Your statement will not be new to them they are experienced cabin crew but your need should be expressed so you cover that a basic need is not being fulfilled.
If they’ve got a sense of humour ask if you can leave the plane at this point. Keep being nice, conversation discreet not loud. Clearly you’re stuck with it by this point I expect. So nicely ask Cabin Director’s advice what is Qatar practice on refunds etc. in this situation (forget it’s miles ticket right now), and how best to proceed with this. Stay nice as this is the only thing that might get you anything if there really is no other lie-flat on the aircraft. No, I suspect they do not have the ability on the plane to get you Al Safwa entry in Doha as part of the fix :-).
Let us know how it goes. If there was space I’d be in a heap of pillows and blankets on the floor.
Thanks, really helpful advice. Had the chat, nothing going. Their solution seemed to be that they could manually adjust the seat every time I wanted the position changed. Clearly not ideal, especially as that would require me hopping out of my seat and standing in the aisle for a few minutes, risking waking others, every time. A solution however I guess it was. I declined. Decided not to push the compensation route there and then – I know I probably should have, but everything else was good, the crew were lovely, and towards the end of a great trip. Will reflect on whether I push it when I get back to the UK. Might, just to see where it goes.
Now however in the Arrivals Lounge at Doha. Only people on the plane not to be connecting on – the 4.00am walk through an airport devoid of other passengers was surreal. No-one at passport control (other than about 15 Qataris for when anyone else turned up), no-one at Customs (other of course than another 15 or so locals – waved through), no-one else in the Arrivals Lounge where my son and I have been for the last 90 minutes (lovely showers, pretty decent food given it’s breakfast), other than all those serving us. I’m hoping my son doesn’t get too used to this life before he finds himself travelling under his own steam (and therefore in the back…).
Sorry to hear of your disappointing experience @SwissJim. Ability to recline at will without drawing attention and crew intervention to oneself is a pretty basic expectation when travelling in J on an airline that boasts about winning “Airline of the Year” an unprecedented seventh time, something that I think bears repeating back to Qatar in your written complaint.
My wife had a similar J class seat malfunction on a BA 787 returning JNB-LHR in May last year, which the crew tried to resolve with several attempts to “reset” the seat electronics from a panel in the crew galley, without success. We accepted the proposed solution of manual heavy lifting by the crew whenever my wife needed to shift position until it came to early breakfast (landing time at LHR is 05:30 for this flight). It then became apparent that it wasn’t possible to manually raise the seat from recline to upright without waking the soundly sleeping passenger one row down. Rather than do that, my wife ate breakfast in an uncomfortable semi-recline. Crew were apologetic, but had done all they could do. It wasn’t going to help the situation by making a fuss on the spot and raising their stress levels any further.
In my written feedback to BA in which I honestly balanced several positives alongside a couple of failings including the seat malfunction, I pointed out that an equipment failure of this sort should be avoidable with a proper maintenance process and that such avoidable equipment malfunctions only serve to impede staff from doing what they should be focussing on doing, namely being personable – something that only they can do and which can’t be replicated by any amount of technology-laden hardware.
I didn’t ask for any compensation or redress, just offered up the insight that an improved focus on equipment maintenance would enhance both passenger and (hard pressed) crew experience, thanked them for getting me where I needed to be and back safely in my circumstances, acknowledged the difficult operating conditions caused by Covid-19 and concluded by genuinely wishing them future success. I was BAEC Gold at the time, and my wife was Blue.
Nine days later I received a response that included the following :
“We don’t underestimate the importance of a comfortable seat during a flight, and will always try to ensure all our seats are in good working order. Thank you for telling our crew about the problem so they could try to sort out the problem while you were still in the air. However, faults like these sometimes need to be fixed when the aircraft is on the ground, and I’m sorry they weren’t able to help on this occasion.
We value your loyalty as members of our Executive Club, and know this experience did not meet our usual standards. I’ve added 40,000 Avios to each of your Executive Club accounts, as an apology for what’s happened.”I have no experience of dealing with Qatar customer service for an issue like this, but wish you good luck and similar success to my own.
My first (and only) first class experience was on Emirates a decade or so ago, and on the LHR-DXB leg the footrest wouldn’t rise up on its own steam or stay in position. The fudge was to put my cabin suitcase underneath as a brace, which got me through it. Only got a paltry 10,000 miles or so recompense which I thought was pretty poor. Not sure I’ve flown with Emirates since…
Sorry to hear of your disappointing experience @SwissJim. Ability to recline at will without drawing attention and crew intervention to oneself is a pretty basic expectation when travelling in J on an airline that boasts about winning “Airline of the Year” an unprecedented seventh time, something that I think bears repeating back to Qatar in your written complaint.
My wife had a similar J class seat malfunction on a BA 787 returning JNB-LHR in May last year, which the crew tried to resolve with several attempts to “reset” the seat electronics from a panel in the crew galley, without success. We accepted the proposed solution of manual heavy lifting by the crew whenever my wife needed to shift position until it came to early breakfast (landing time at LHR is 05:30 for this flight). It then became apparent that it wasn’t possible to manually raise the seat from recline to upright without waking the soundly sleeping passenger one row down. Rather than do that, my wife ate breakfast in an uncomfortable semi-recline. Crew were apologetic, but had done all they could do. It wasn’t going to help the situation by making a fuss on the spot and raising their stress levels any further.
In my written feedback to BA in which I honestly balanced several positives alongside a couple of failings including the seat malfunction, I pointed out that an equipment failure of this sort should be avoidable with a proper maintenance process and that such avoidable equipment malfunctions only serve to impede staff from doing what they should be focussing on doing, namely being personable – something that only they can do and which can’t be replicated by any amount of technology-laden hardware.
I didn’t ask for any compensation or redress, just offered up the insight that an improved focus on equipment maintenance would enhance both passenger and (hard pressed) crew experience, thanked them for getting me where I needed to be and back safely in my circumstances, acknowledged the difficult operating conditions caused by Covid-19 and concluded by genuinely wishing them future success. I was BAEC Gold at the time, and my wife was Blue.
Nine days later I received a response that included the following :
“We don’t underestimate the importance of a comfortable seat during a flight, and will always try to ensure all our seats are in good working order. Thank you for telling our crew about the problem so they could try to sort out the problem while you were still in the air. However, faults like these sometimes need to be fixed when the aircraft is on the ground, and I’m sorry they weren’t able to help on this occasion.
We value your loyalty as members of our Executive Club, and know this experience did not meet our usual standards. I’ve added 40,000 Avios to each of your Executive Club accounts, as an apology for what’s happened.”I have no experience of dealing with Qatar customer service for an issue like this, but wish you good luck and similar success to my own.
40,000 Avios isn’t a lot, really. Doesn’t take long to earn/churn those.
40,000 Avios isn’t a lot, really. Doesn’t take long to earn/churn those.
I would take ~£400 to eat breakfast in a slightly uncomfortable recline
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