Only 57 in economy and 7 in buisness on plane this morning from Edinburgh via Doha. Stewardess said it’s the quietest she has ever seen it...

Anyone else been on a international flight with so little people as this? 

 

There are many other ways to get here from Scotland as I'm sure you know. There are also many other reason for going to Doha then coming here. It is low season here and the weather in Scotland should be improving so traffic to Pattaya is usually less.

Looks like you lucked out and had a decent sleep on your flight.

I was on an Air Jordan flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok which then went onto Jordan. My leg was empty. Just me in Business class, 2 air sheriffs and the trolly dollies. 

And that's before the missiles start flying ..

4 hours ago, Geordie59 said:

There are many other ways to get here from Scotland as I'm sure you know. There are also many other reason for going to Doha then coming here. It is low season here and the weather in Scotland should be improving so traffic to Pattaya is usually less.

Looks like you lucked out and had a decent sleep on your flight.

I know there is many other ways to get to Pattaya, I was trying some sarcasm. 

 

I’m not sure how much thought has gone into Qatar’s rapid route expansion or if it’s just ego-driven to look as if they’re taking on Emirates.

They’ve been really pushing cheap Economy fares from a number of UK airports recently. Don’t know if they’re willing to lose money in the short to medium term or if they’ll just cut routes. Can’t see them filling planes that often.

My Emirates flight from Glasgow to Dubai in October was empty towards the back, let's hope it doesn't happen too often otherwise they will stop flying from Glasgow. Dubai to Bangkok was full

 

 

Flew BKK - DUB in February with Ethiad Abu dabhi - Dublin empty everyone in cattle class had row to themselves didn't do headcount

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7 hours ago, Joethescot said:

Only 57 in economy and 7 in buisness on plane this morning from Edinburgh via Doha. Stewardess said it’s the quietest she has ever seen it...

Anyone else been on a international flight with so little people as this? 

 

I'm using that route for the first time in June.

 I usually go from Manchester with Qatar but thought I'd give Edinburgh a try & take advantage of the cheaper fares.

 I was lucky with my flights last year being similarly under capacity as yours. 

Looks like I might drop lucky again.

I was very surprised as normally use Emirates. I always book back row on the end and 9times our of 10 never have a neighbour. 

Sat in Qatar airport just now waiting on my next flight,god it’s expensive

Just for info, Etihad have announced they’re dropping Edinburgh from October 1. Also dropping Perth (Australia :-) on the same date.

Qatar also looking to chop same route

Sadly my flights are always full or near full when I fly to Thailand and back home.

So whenever I fly I always hope that at least one of my economy flights are full so that there is a chance to be upgraded to Business class

On 11/04/2018 at 19:27, davidge said:

I’m not sure how much thought has gone into Qatar’s rapid route expansion or if it’s just ego-driven to look as if they’re taking on Emirates.

Perhaps also likely to be partly-related to the drop in passengers on Qatar, originating in in the UAE/Saudi/Egypt/Bahrein, now affected by the silly  (IMO)  blockade ?  They were/are expert at winning Passengers from other ME-countries !

Their planned route-expansion has probably been accelerated, trying to find work for the under-used planes which formerly operated those local-connections  ...  Qatar were recently lending planes (and crews ?) to British Airways (who they have a shareholding in), also to Meridiana/Air-Italy (ditto) to help their accelerated-growth, and a lot of the new routes (for example Mykonos/Thessaloniki/Chiang-Mai-this-summer) are using those under-utilised narrow-bodies.

Planes & crews need to be in-the-air, to be earning their keep !  In my charter-airline days, we flew twice-as-many block-hours in summer, as we did in the winter ?  And tried to schedule major-maintenance for the winter, or lease aircraft/crews out to Aussie or South America, in low-season.

Or perhaps it's a seasonal-flow, at the transition from winter-flying to summer-flying, I recall a flight into LHR on Jet Airways a few years ago, which was totally-full going but half-empty on the return-flight a couple-of-weeks later.

Qatar are known to be very-proactive in switching their varied fleet, to cope with seasonal-variations in demand, on specific routes, for example subbing B773s for A388s on the DOH-BKK route, or A350s for B777s on DOH-LHR ?  They have more options for this, than Emirates with their different fleet, of mainly A380s/B777s, albeit in more varying layouts.

You always IMO check that your selected-seat is still a good one, a couple-of-weeks before flying Qatar, in case of late aircraft-changes !

 

On 11/04/2018 at 19:27, davidge said:

I’m not sure how much thought has gone into Qatar’s rapid route expansion or if it’s just ego-driven to look as if they’re taking on Emirates.

They’ve been really pushing cheap Economy fares from a number of UK airports recently. Don’t know if they’re willing to lose money in the short to medium term or if they’ll just cut routes. Can’t see them filling planes that often.

It doesn't matter to them, profit is not an issue. It's  State owned and they have all the $ they need to have the airline as a promotion tool rather than a profit making enterprise.

Flew to Beijing on NYE a few years ago with BA. Plane was a fully staffed 747 and there were only 4 people in the whole of Business class. My partner and i had the entire front half of Business class to ourselves and it felt like we had our own private jet. I asked why they had such a big plane with so few people to be told that every single seat was taken on the return flight.

To address the original poster you have to wonder about the rapid expansion of the middle Eastern three. Even with massive state subsidies there has to be an element of viability. Are daily long haul flights sustainable via doha or Dubai sustainable in the long term from the likes of Cardiff, Edinburgh or Dublin? Despite the service being operational for a while now i have yet to read a single report from anyone who has taken the Qatar service to Pattaya (UTP )

Emirates have just announced a daily service from Edinburgh - Dubai. Starts in October.....more choice!

I've just booked EDI-DOH-BKK for a trip in October..... Price was significantly cheaper than MAN-DOH-BKK... £270 cheaper!!!

And Qatar price was cheaper than Emirates from EDI.

Also it's an A350 from EDi, that's an improvement on the 787 Nightmareliners they use on MAN-DOH!!!.