Flight Log of Qatar Airways Flight 246 from Istanbul Ataturk to Doha on September 1st, 2016

Time to head back home.
It seemed that everything was expedited for the last day, I finished my tour of Eyup and Golden Horn ahead of schedule, my parents finished their visit of Grand Bazaar ahead of schedule, then all the gift shopping and currency exchange was done without a hitch.
So the result was that, we arrived at the airport four hours before our scheduled departure.

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With all the threats of looming terrorists, we needed to go through security screening when entering the airport from the subway station. One thing I wasn’t so comfortable about is that, I waited longer at that preliminary screening than at the actual screening inside the airport, which sounded quite ironic.

And by the way, maybe due to the absence of currency regulations and competitions (both of which are good), the currency exchanges at the airport was offering better rates than the shops downtown, which was quite to my surprise.

Again, it sadden me greatly that I was waiting in a dwindling queue for the boarding passes and checked bags.

One thing I shall mention was that, for the last couple of days Qatar Airways had been operating this daily service to Istanbul with A333, but somehow, that day’s service was instead an A332. Maybe this change caused Qatar Airways to oversell that flight.
There were (I thought) two families (ours and one else) of three flying to Shanghai on that day, and we seemed to be checking in at the same time. The agent (who didn’t speak very good English by the way) informed me that there was an oversold, but somehow I was misinformed that it’s the flight to Shanghai that’s oversold, and he tried to give me some offer. So I didn’t hesitate to mention my offer to fly us to Hangzhou instead (I checked in advance that Qatar’s 4-times-a-week service to HGH departs 5 minutes earlier than its Shanghai daily service on that day). By the time some senior staff came along and I got clear it was the Doha-bound flight that’s oversold, it seemed the other family had already taken the offer to fly Turkish Airlines direct to Shanghai.
Conclusion: Please Qatar Airways, hire someone that speaks better English.

Then we headed for the immigration and security, as I witnessed more line cutting than in China. Well, I certainly didn’t miss home in this aspect.

By this time we were pretty familiar with the prices of things in Turkey, and it seemed everything in the food court was like more than double of what they were sold on the streets.
And although this is an airport located in Turkey, it only accepted Euros. Want to pay Turkish Lira? Some bad exchange rates were waiting for you.

At this time, a Qatar Airways crew member approached us, telling how sorry they were for the oversold and for bumping us to Turkish Airlines. Since the agents at check-in told us there might be offers at boarding, we sort of believed her story. It was five minutes later that we each found out she’s looking for somebody else with her not-so-good Mandarin.

I’m always fond of the seats on an Airbus 330 (expect the slave ship called Air Aisa X), for they have sort of some default recline in the “upright” position.
One thing I’m not so fond of, there’s no USB ports.

More than forty minutes after takeoff, I was served dinner, which, in Qatar Airways standard, wasn’t bad. The kind lady even consulted me for a few Mandarin words.

I picked beef and carrot and egg roll, which tasted good. Again, for a big fan of sweets, that cake’s wonderful. Whatever vegetables beside it, not so good.

Since I got up very early in the morning, (earliest in the two weeks in Turkey, expect balloon day) I was expectedly sleepy at the moment. After the meal services, I basically slept all the way to Doha.

Again, it’s the “apron” and “shuttle” combo. Again, Qatar Airways knew to send stairs to the rear so as to expedite the disembarkation.
Again, we were greeted with the hot and humid desert air. #AirconIsGreat.

Flight 870 of Qatar Airways will be on the next post.
END