DOHA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT review : 22 July 2008 : by S Thew

Customer Rating : 4/5

For our morning arrival, the airport was not at all crowded. For a mother of three, most important of all, it held a really nice play area. The area included a climbing and sliding area which is really helpful when working off all that stored energy from a long-haul flight. Better than expected.

DOHA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT review : 19 July 2008 : by Mark Whiteside

Customer Rating : 4/5

Very impressed with Doha. Very small but easy to navigate airport. We had a 30minute transfer on the way back with Qatar but found it easy and simple and had time to spare at the gate. Baggage made it to London as well even though a quick transfer. Plenty of seats as well. The two main problems is that even though there are several small toilets, they were never clean and had an inch of water all over the floor (in two separate toilets). No airbridges either which means bussing everyone to the plane but this cant easily be changed given the layout of the airport. Hopefully the new Doha airport will be better. For all four flights we took off from the tarmac 5 minutes before the departure time. Much prefer this to Dubai, less cluttered and much more organised. Not nearly as much shopping but less transfer time (30minutes min) compared to than Dubai (75minutes min).

DOHA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT review : 7 June 2008 : by S Kumar

Customer Rating : 4/5

Doha is a small but clean and modern airport - it is busy - very busy in the evenings and if your using the main terminal it is hard to find a seat to sit down and relax. The duty free shop is ok - not a great choice and it could be cheaper. The main problem with Doha is getting off the plane onto a coach and then into the building which takes time and if there's a queue to go through security it can take up to half an hour. The Gold and Silver lounges are clean and quiet and its a great way to spend time - if you have a privilege card. If you use the premium terminal then its a wonderful place to be - free internet, cafe food and drink, even spas, showers and beds are available. There is a room for small kids and one for larger ones to play video/sony playstation games. My main headache is if I fly in on economy and fly out in Business I still have to use the main terminal which takes time. Qatar should allow economy passengers who are flying a higher class for their onward the travel the chance to go straight to the premium terminal rather than having to go to the main one then being bussed again which takes up to 45 minutes.

DOHA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT review : 29 April 2008 : by S Parmar

Customer Rating : 4/5

It was great. Had a connecting flight to Mumbai from Manchester. Transfer very easy. Very easy to get your head around how the airport works. No trouble.

Doha International Airport review by P Bhattacharyya

9 April 2008   Customer Rating :

I spent about 5 hours on transit waiting for my connecting flight to Washington DC(IAD). The airport is good. Duty free shop is small but quite good. I wish wireless internet connectivity is made available at least in some designated areas if not in all the waiting areas for the economy class passengers also. The quiet rooms are very good and useful if one is lucky to get a place to seat. The restaurants are OK but not very exciting. It was Ramzan time when I landed and alcoholic drinks were naturally prohibited in public places. I do not know if any bar service is available in other times.

Doha International Airport review by S Hussaini

26 February 2008   Customer Rating :

While going from Cairo to Hyderabad, stayed at Doha airport for a couple of hours. Though small, its good ambience and clean. Would love to go through again.

Doha International Airport review by Pierre Fabre

5 February 2008   Customer Rating :

Lots of improvements since my last visit a couple of years ago. This time I spent 7 hours at Doha airport between connecting flights. (Ahmedabad-Doha, Doha-Paris). Luggage check when deplaning is efficient and fast. The new extension of the building supplies more than sufficient space and extensive seating. Toilet capacity has been doubled but at times you still may have to queue to get in. he quiet room makes a nice resting area despite the airconditioning noise (which barely covers the snoarers) and good looking but rather uncomfortable seats. You'll have to make a pillow with your clothes in order to avoid pain in your neck. The 2 quiet rooms are not that large, so if you want to take a nap in a queiter and darker environment, head for them as soon as you arrive. There is a great playground for kids. Food - I tried French fries: expensive and not very good. Vegetable samosas, a much better deal but too oily. The duty free shop is still dissapointing: not much choice and not so great prices.

Doha International Airport review by A Ismail

23 July 2007   Customer Rating :

Transited twice at Doha, for the LHR-KUL flight. Outbound transit was 6 hours. Better than expected airport. Small but comfortable. Very clean overall. The toilet seems to have attendants cleaning it round the clock! However choice of food outlets and shopping is extremely limited (and there's also free internet - but very slow) but It doesn't matter since I managed to get 4 hours of sleep in the quiet room! Will come again!

Doha International Airport review by C Beviss

23 July 2007   Customer Rating :

Spent 10 hours on our flight back from Nairobi to Heathrow. The place is nice, clean and huge. Food is expensive in the cafes. Duty free shop quite good though not extensively stocked. Wouldn't mind traveling through there again. Traveling with Qatar Airways was superb.

Doha International Airport review by Philip Williams

30 June 2007   Customer Rating :

Bangkok to Madrid via Doha. Only had a couple of hours there but Doha is a nice enough experience. There's plenty of room to sit down and plenty of monitors to check your flight time on. That's all I really ask of an airport during a short transit. The airport was small and quite busy but it's got everything you need - smoking rooms, cafeteria, large duty-free shop. Two hours passed pretty painlessly.

Doha International Airport review by R Clarke

20 June 2007   Customer Rating :

Staid at the new Premium Terminal and its a huge improvement. Very relaxing with good food and attentive staff. Business Class Lounge does become crowded late at night when most flights leave but other than that very nice. It does lack number of toilets.

Doha International Airport review by Giannis Liberopoulos

13 May 2007   Customer Rating :

Transit in Doha from Athens to Cape Town. Small airport but clean and easy. Food courts really crowded but staff always polite and smily. Loved the "quiet rooms" where you can actually take a nap if you have a long transit time, with no lights and absolute respect to silence! Smoking rooms reminded me of the turkish baths, but that was also very unique! Spacey departure gates, buses are used from gates to the aircraft, everything OK !

Doha International Airport review by Ahmed Alzuhairi

13 May 2007   Customer Rating :

Had a transit in Doha airport twice during my flights from LHR-AUH-LGW. Buses are used to take passengers to and from planes to the terminal and less than an hour connection will mean you will not get to see the terminal as gates close 10mins before departure to allow passengers to get to the plane on time. The airport is very spacious with plenty of seats. There are 2 free internet zones sponsored by Samsung, each with 10 computers. There is no time limit for using the computer so expect to wait 10-15 minutes until someone feels considerate. Duty free is quite small but will do the job for the short connecting flight. Will use Doha airport and Qatar airways again.

Doha International Airport review by Kurt Müller

9 May 2007   Customer Rating :

Considering this is a temporary terminal (there is an entirely new international airport being built adjacent to the current site), it cannot really be faulted, except for the all visible food outlets being bunched together. They get very crowded early in the morning with pax from numerous incoming flights - the problem is you have to get a prepaid coupon from a central cash desk, irrespective from which outlet you want to buy. Go beyond the food court towards the south end of the terminal building upstairs and opposite the Oryx Lounge you'll find a much quieter "Costa" coffee shop with a good view of the runway. If you have an extended waiting period between flights, try the "Quiet Rooms" upstairs. Reasonably comfortable and no interior lighting, so you can get a few hours of sleep. Again, this is a temporary solution - I wish permanent airports in India were half as good.

Doha International Airport review by David Leston

10 March 2007   Customer Rating :

Transited DOH 4 times over the past month and all the comments about it being clean, efficient, spacious, accommodating etc are true, however if you have a long transit time between flights (which can easily be the case with Qatar waves of flight departures), you can soon get bored. There is little to keep you occupied (especially at night, when you can't even look out onto the apron), other than the food outlets and a couple of computer terminals with internet access (about 14 for the whole airport). I found staff to be relatively helpful, though cheerless.

Doha International Airport review by Gavin Stewart

3 March 2007   Customer Rating :

Ignore the gripes, Doha is fine. The one thing it's not short of is space. Big, very bright, clean, immaculately tidy. Endless rows of well-proportioned seats. Rather short on facilities and a long layover could be tedious. Just a small Costa coffee and a rather poky food hall. Outlets very flexible on taking different currencies, don't worry if you don't have riyals you'll be fine. Shopping is nice enough. Couple of downsides -transit desk is disorganised, it wasn't all that busy yet felt chaotic and intimidating with queue jumping and upsetting behaviour. Make sure you get your boarding pass through to destination. Downstairs gates are on the congested side, upstairs better. All boarding via buses which is well organised but makes for slow boarding. Infrastructure getting better and better though.

Doha International Airport review by John Hassett

3 March 2007   Customer Rating :

Transited DOH on flights to and from Male. Very easy airport to negotiate, even when it's busy. Very open and spacious upstairs, with view of the runway and plenty of seating. Nice Duty Free shops and prices lower than Europe. There are no jetways, so you are transferred between terminal and aircraft on buses. We were there in Jan/Feb, so not a problem, but it may be a different situation in the heat of summer. This will no longer be an issue when the new terminal is built.

Doha International Airport review by Gordon Sadler

26 February 2007   Customer Rating : n/a

Currently sitting out a 7 hour stop over in our journey from Bangkok to London Gatwick in the Oryx Lounge in Doha airport using the free wifi, enjoying free drink and food and a decent sized smoking area and feeling smug at having paid $25 per person to use the lounge as the airport is very busy and public areas are crowded. That said, when we passed through the airport on our outward journey, we had no problems at the airport (it wasn't so busy). Public areas are large and clean, information provided as a transfer passenger was quite good - so found the right gate ok. Duty free is good, although not on a par with Dubai for size - but prices are very good for perfumes and tobaccos. On this leg of the journey, our plane was parked a fair way from the terminal, so it was a 15 min bus journey, but on previous leg bus transfer took only a couple of minutes. I would have no qualms about using Doha again.

Doha International Airport review by John Charlesworth

26 February 2007   Customer Rating : n/a

Doha airport is not a bad place to be whilst in transit even as an economy passenger. My only complaint it the time spent queuing for x- ray inspection upon arrival and then when your flight is called for the security inspection before boarding.

Doha International Airport review by Neels Kriek
13 February 2007

I had reservations about my decision to fly via Doha on Qatar Airways over the '06 Christmas period. Now I can only speak of a great, welcoming, friendly and efficient experience. The facilities were first class (clean, new, customer friendly, etc), the efficiency of the people on par with the best and the general experience I would rate at least 7/10.

Doha International Airport review by P Maddison
26 January 2007

Having worried about this airport as we had a 5 hour stopover, we had no problems at all. We were there in the evening when the airport was quite busy. There was plenty of very comfortable seating. The food provided by the airline was nothing special but quite OK, toilets were plentiful and clean and duty free massive. There was a new Costa coffee which was good though expensive. There was a last minute change of gate as others have said but it was announced on the screens and caused no problems. Would happily use the airport again. Incidentally economy class on Qatar Airlines is very good indeed.

Doha International Airport review by James Bowen
26 January 2007

Airport is much better then expected. Plenty of seating though armrests make it impossible to sleep. Well lit (perhaps overbright for night time stop-over) and very clean. Bit of a queue to pass security despite only transiting, but good duty free shop to look around. The best thing about this very simple airport for economy pax has to be the Oryx Lounge. $30 gets you use of the lounge for 6 hours complete with comfy leather sofas, free wireless net, food and drink, newspapers and a relaxing smokers section. One quarm was the way in which boarding passes were checked rather officiously by female lounge staff. Otherwise a great experience.

Doha International Airport review by Frank Holl
19 January 2007

Passed through Doha Airport and was very pleasantly surprised - it was very bright, clean, and plenty of seats, and staff were pleasant and helpful.

Doha International Airport review by Joaquin Gonzalez
9 January 2007

DOH is a pleasant airport for Economy passengers. There are no sky bridges: you are bussed to/fro the plane, so try not to take too much hand luggage. This system is generally efficient, but becomes messy when several long-haul flights board at the same, resulting in snaking lines. Immigration can be a bit crowded if several flights arrive together. Departing Doha, the new upper level is a great contrast to the crowded lower level. However, the toilets aren't the nicest (though cleaned very regularly) and not large enough for the number of passengers. F&B options are pretty basic and dire. I have a feeling that only the Business/First passengers are being taken care off. Given the large numbers of migrant workers in the region (and their economic/social status compared to the locals), I would not expect the local authorities to do much more.

Doha International Airport review by L Pilakuta
3 January 2007

Transited Doha twice in December 2006, and was pleased to see the results of the long awaited transformation. Even for Ecomony passengers who can't access the five star First/Business Terminal, the extensions made to the old terminal provide the desperately needed space for tired transit passengers. Now, there is enough seating space in the brightly lit terminal, well above the hustle of the somewhat crowded tax free shops on ground floor. Toilets (western) style have been added. Unfortunately, the food outlets are still very basic and uninspiring, and obviously no alcohol. Therefore, do enjoy the food and wine service on QR, well above the standards you'd get on any European airline. Even if transfers to/from the plane are by bus, the service is efficient and quite hassle-free.

Doha International Airport review by May Loong
20 December 2006

Flew on business class in early Dec. The airport and Qatar Airways treats its transit passengers with onward First/Business class tickets very well - coach takes you from plane steps directly to the Lounge! Lounge has business centre for internet/email and English Language newspapers & magazines, Playstation games room, a clinic (not sure what the charges are), and the lounge includes a waitress service dining area. You could be in an urban cafe with espressos being made and served at your table while you read or eat a light meal! Very civilised. PS don't carry a lot of heavy luggage without wheels as it's a HUGE area to walk back and forth, and there are no trolleys. There are plenty of staff, and the toilets and showers are very clean and well-maintained.