Qatar Airways has launched a new on-board dining experience for its Premium customers, starting with European routes. For me, Qatar’s food has always been good but not particularly exciting so this sounds like good news. The enhanced dining includes newly-designed tableware, in-flight dining menus, cutlery and chinaware.
Qatar Airways has also put a greater focus on featuring regional influences within the menu design process, which now sees the inclusion of new signature dishes to the in-flight menu based on route destinations, such as porcini and truffle risotto on Italian sectors. Traditionally prepared Arabic main dishes such as kabsa, biryani and flame-grilled meats, will be available on most routes.
Warm desserts will be served in the Business Class cabin, in addition, afternoon tea on selected routes. There will be lots of new details such as the mini grinders with ground black peppercorns and Himalayan pink salt, to tableware such as the linen-lined bread baskets with a freshly baked trio of bread. Although there is no specific mention of it in the press release the photos do contain a picture of the lovely candle that I had on my A350 QSuites flight which I thought was a lovely touch. Hopefully, this means the new dining service will get this as well as the QSuites.
I was also pleased to see that Qatar are focusing on offering lighter feature lighter options, such as salads, berries, warm porridge and more. Healthier drink options such as “cold pressed” juice in different flavour combinations will also be available on selected menus.
It’s not just business class getting the improvements. First class will get an enhanced caviar service offering for First Class passengers, accompanied with a Balik-style salmon and presented on a bespoke crystal plate.
Thai Airways flash sale
Thai have a flash sale with Trailfinders on business class for booking until 31 May. The prices are not fantastic but reasonable from the UK for an airline with a decent business class seat and good food and service.
- Hong Kong £2437
- Bangkok direct £2442
- Phuket £2499
- Melbourne £2889
- Perth £2899
- Sydney £2899
- Auckland £2915
The fares are available for selected departures: from 16/05/2018 to 31/03/2019. The Trailfinders sale page is here.
Virgin aircraft changes
Virgin Atlantic have been struggling with their lack of aircraft due to the B787 engine issues which has led to quite a few aircraft swaps this year. They have just filed a whole new round of aircraft changes including operating all flights from Manchester with B747-400 between 28 October 2018 and 30 March 2019. At Heathrow, there are lots of different changes for the winter including swapping the B787 to San Francisco to an A340 and also on certain dates for Los Angeles. Other affected routes include Boston, New York, Washington and Dubai. If you have any flights booked on Virgin over the winter it is worth checking your booking to see if you have an aircraft swap in case you need to change seats.
You can check your booking here.
