Qatar Airways bans Youtuber

[elanshin]

I will say a few things that did stick out to me though from Part 1 of the CMB-DOH review:
1. A 17yo A333 is not a clunker or a "dinosaur" and many older and much more tired-looking aircraft are in mid-haul international service worldwide (looking at certain other airlines closer to home ) so Cahill was off the mark there right away, and that particular aircraft presented quite well for its age, and for me as a first-time viewer, this detracted from the rest of the review.

I think you misinterpret 17 yo a333 here as the airframe itself and not the interior. Yes QF has similarly aged planes but the interior is effectively from 2014/2015. QR here does look like they have an interior from the 00s. I don't think there would have been any issue if it was the same economy seat as the newer fleet.

2. Some precious comments about cabin crew in the galley having their backs turned towards some customers were a little over-the-top in my own opinion, flight is being loaded and catered and flight attendants are busy at this time. Not a big deal to me and I'm wondering if there was more context of more interaction between the cabin crew member and the YTer about the use of the mobile steady-cam as its a bit more obvious than handheld use.
3. The review was of a Y-class product and maybe the expectations were a bit on the high side? Every airline claims to be the best in the world but when you are down the back in Y all you really need is competence and cleanliness as a bare minimum.
4. Mis-catering or catering stuff-ups are not a new or unique thing - we've seen many other examples post-Covid real catering stuff-ups from solid airlines like BA MH SQ QF & OZ among others. The food looked fine to me but lack of choice can be annoying to some.

I think all these points are imo his (and other people's) expectations from past experiences vs now. I don't think hes the only one to point out that QR seem to be on a slight decline.

5. The bathroom floors and cleaning might be the reason for the termination of some employees but again, unfortunately, the Covid emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene has now been lost by other post-Covid workforce shortages/cost cutting/low crew morale beancounter related issues that are widespread across the industry, this is not unique to QR, and is industry-wide so maybe the intent is to show how widespread this issue is?

Lets be honest here, the termination of the employees are very much a "you got caught not showing us in the best light". QR's terrible treatment of their cabin crew are pretty well documented at this point by many past employees.

Persoanlly, the review itself seems fine - yes there are subjective nitpicky things, but every reviewer has that (I remember watching Noel Phillips being picky about everything with CX because he has a trauma against CX despite the flight been more than fine from what even he described). Overall it was an opinion that QR was not the same QR as it was 4-5 years ago in Y.

How QR handled the response however seems to be doing themselves more harm than good.

I think the other thing that may come out of this is how other Youtubers handle QR going forward. There's lots of youtubers that fly QR relatively regularly for reviews.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Interesting also in the context of Qantas's new rules where filming anyone (including other passengers or crew) without their express permission beforehand is now banned.

Staff can seemingly give permission, but stops incidents being filmed.

There will still be some incidents where seeking permission is not possible. If you are witnessing a potential crime for example it won’t be practical to ask before filming.

 

[dylarr]

Best quote
"I'm not Sam Chui"
With reference to free flights.

This cracked me up. Some nice shade being thrown

Pretty poor response from Qatar. Although given their history I’m not entirely surprised. They’re not exactly known for their grace and professionalism when handling PR disasters.

 

[frodo]

Many of these youtubers love to create a narrative or exaggerate things.

If you go through Josh's videos, you'll see basically every one makes it sound like it's the best flight ever or the worst flight ever and they will focus on certain things to make it that way. Unfortunately doing that get more views than just saying the flight was average with not many issues.

 

[eastwest101]

Agree with you that the age of the aircraft itself may or may not reflect the presentation in the cabin, as you say that QR A330 interior was dated but was still in pretty decent condition for its age, I have seen younger aircraft and/or more recently refurbished aircraft with interiors in worse condition and equipment not working/broken as well as the general wear and tear.

Persoanlly, the review itself seems fine - yes there are subjective nitpicky things, but every reviewer has that (I remember watching Noel Phillips being picky about everything with CX because he has a trauma against CX despite the flight been more than fine from what even he described). Overall it was an opinion that QR was not the same QR as it was 4-5 years ago in Y.

How QR handled the response however seems to be doing themselves more harm than good.

Yes I did see that Noel Phillips review, and it was similar in that there was nothing outlandishly bad or wrong with CX on that flight but as he pointed out - CX aren't what they used to be and it was all just a bit underwhelming, and that seems like a familiar theme on forums such as this, and on the more recent Utube reviews, a similar story about QR EK EY and CX and possibly even SQ?

As you say - its all a bit subjective and the reviewers have to create interesting content so a bog standard flight as expected with nothing special or terrible may not make the most interesting content and that is where maybe they need to get a bit more scientific/professional, and try not to let personal biases of one trivial thing snowball into something bigger than what it seems.

I expect there would be lots of reviews online post Covid that airline XYZ isn't what it used to be, and that's a fair characterization of the entire industry post-Covid, maybe it is just more noticeable that the "high flyers" in recent years had a lot further to fall, than some of the other big legacy airlines with longstanding poor perceptions.

Has anyone got an airline that has improved its customer experience from the pre-Covid days? Nope, I thought not.

Actually, I just realized - maybe consistent Southwest as the statistical outlier? Possibly have been able to stay where they were precovid on customer satisfaction and experience, I saw an article quoting a few other US carriers that had slight improvements or at least not the noticeable falls of most airlines.

 

[elanshin]

Actually, I just realized - maybe consistent Southwest as the statistical outlier? Possibly have been able to stay where they were precovid on customer satisfaction and experience, I saw an article quoting a few other US carriers that had slight improvements or at least not the noticeable falls of most airlines.

Cough 2022 christmas meltdown.

 

[yaziyo]

In the comments of the original review video in question, I saw comments from QR staff talking about how the airline treats them very poorly, with plenty of upvotes and engagement on the comments. I wonder if it's the fact that his video elicited this kind of commentary to come out, more than the actual video (which seemed pretty normal) that caused the angry response from QR.

 

[ANstar]

Pretty bad optics. I wonder what they think banning him achieves

Having one less annoying whinging youtuber onboard?
I remember the time he was complaining about not getting the special meal he ordered but had moved in flight to a different seat and not told the crew.

 

[marki]

That has absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

Really ? Qatar has its quirks but holds up against the likes of Qantas. Both now won’t let recordings.

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2023

OT , so apologies for that- this is what I have been telling my mates, most of whom, seem to think that there is nothing compared to SQ when it comes to flights from AU to the Subcontinent. Everyone swears by SQ and I keep saying "they are not that great ... they used to be, perhaps? but I don't think they are now" and most of them say "oh, you only fly QF, so you think every other airline is inferior" ... happens all the time I suggest that my mates try EK or QR or EY or CX or MH or any airline other than just keep trying SQ ... and most of my mates fly Y ...

Oh this is OT

 

[MikeG]

He should have checked SmartTraveller:

• Avoid commenting on Qatari culture, government policy or services, and commercial enterprises online while in Qatar. This includes reviewing hotel or restaurant experiences on social media. These activities could be considered cybercrime offences in Qatar.

But regardless, I'm not a fan of how they have handled this, and I'll be asking my travel arrangers to avoid Qatar Airways for the foreseeable future. I prefer Emirates anyhow!

 

[marki]

He should have checked SmartTraveller:



But regardless, I'm not a fan of how they have handled this, and I'll be asking my travel arrangers to avoid Qatar Airways for the foreseeable future. I prefer Emirates anyhow!

To be fair it did say while in Qatar.

 

[MikeG]

To be fair it did say while in Qatar.

He was in Qatar for some of the flight so this is completely valid. And as it’s a national airline all his time while onboard is probably considered to be “in Qatar”.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hilarious! Was just watching another of Mr Cahill’s *shocking safety how can this happen?’ videos… and he gets to the airport in a tuk tuk, in India!! sigh.