Should I buy the “Dots & Ribs” condoms, the “Power Up intimate cream for men” or the “Play Vibrations stimulation ring for both partners”? Shopping options at airports can be terribly glamorous, I sigh swooningly to myself as I look at the prices (£3, £4 and £3 respectively, since you asked). And really, who needs the elegant Hermès, Gucci, Valentino and Tiffany boutiques at Qatar’s Doha Airport when you have such varied (if slightly seedy) options at this vending machine here in the men’s room in Manchester’s Terminal 2?
Perhaps it was these difficult decisions about what to wear – they all sound so tempting – that led to Manchester being named ‘Britain’s most stressful airport’ in recent research (although the experts behind the research claim that it, even more boring, was based on lost airports). baggage levels, parking costs and punctuality figures). Worse still, all three of Manchester’s terminals made the bottom five Which? 2024 magazine research into UK airports.
Meanwhile, Doha’s Hamad International won “best airport in the world” in April at the prestigious Skytrax Awards (like the Oscars for runways and baggage carousels, except Amsterdam Schiphol never punched Chicago O’Hare for making a joke about the woman from Schiphol). Of course it would be annoying to compare, but since all these judges seem to be doing it, I’m about to compare a lot of. In fact, I’m taking a flight from Manchester to Doha for the specific purpose of pitting the Arabian Gem against Wythenshawe’s best.
It all starts so promisingly too when I’m sent off the train to something called the Skylink. It sounds sci-fi, it looks sci-fi (lit neon blue in the late night darkness), but – possibly because I arrived just after the cleaners – it smells like Nanna’s house after she’s done with the TCP.
All along the elevated walkway are billboards trumpeting the “transformation” of Terminal 2 with a series of computer-generated images of what the place will look like later £1.3 billion – which apparently looks exactly like an airport. Except that the remarkably diverse crowd of people depicted are all smiling.
Behind the billboards are some non-working travelers; when I arrive at my terminal it is completely empty except for one man trying to sleep between some stanchions; but I notice that the bars of all the airport hotels are buzzing. I take this as a promising sign – until I check into the Ibis Budget and see why. I can shuffle back and forth the three steps that the layout of my room allows, like a death row inmate; look out the window at a nearly identical cell across the Holiday Inn parking lot; or drink a can of Stella in the lobby.
The upside is that the next morning it’s just a few shuffling steps – a 90 second walk, even with a recurring wheelie suitcase – from the Ibis to Terminal 2. Now that I’m at the end of the departure lounge, I can see what they doing. spent their money on. The place looks fantastic: a sleek, white, futuristic, but also a bit art deco space, with great lighting and sunlight streaming in through a partly glass ceiling. There’s a vibrant red bit, where Jet2 does its thing, and a cheerful sky blue bit, for Tui – a pleasing symmetry with Manchester’s two big football clubs – and as I go through security I see that two of the lanes are one that smart new scanners that don’t require you to put away your liquids and laptops – and dignity – for public consumption.
I agree literally everyone is friendlier than London airports. Even when one of those epaulette-wearing types pulls me over to rummage through my hand luggage, she calls me ‘love’ and smiles reassuringly when her counterpart at Heathrow would have stripped and tasered me.
Once I’m through, I find myself in a beautiful, smart, pleasantly walkable departure hall, with plenty of room to sit (and stylish wood and leather chairs). Apart from the sex aid machines, retail choices are limited – although I do enjoy the ‘I ❤️ Manchester’ section in the bookshop, which consists of 30 per cent hastily spooky autobiographies of footballers, 10 per cent hastily spooky autobiographies of footballers’ wives, 5 per cent books by Shaun Ryder (he’s written two! That’s almost as many as Kafka!), and 55 percent urban crime thrillers with all-caps titles like CHEEKY And SHAMETourists are unlikely to rush to visit their sites.
However, there is a whole week of food and drink options. On one side you see the elegant Say Carlo, with its soft cornflower blue benches and pretty cherry blossom tree in the middle, and where breakfast options include “grilled zucchini and aubergine with cannellini beans, chilli tomatoes, sautéed spinach and sourdough”. And on the other side you enter the Amber Alehouse, where bacon and sausage butts are served alongside pints of 7 Brothers Juicy IPA (6% ABV, so you can cure and create your hangover at the same time) beneath artful black and white photographs by noted bon vivant Liam Gallagher .
Boarding, like everything else at the airport, goes smoothly and we are on our way to Doha on time. Obviously my critical faculties would be as numb as my bum after seven hours of economics, so I’ll stick with business class – but I’m afraid I may have overdone it. Qatar Airways’ six-foot reclining seats, sliding door suites with ‘do not disturb’ indicators and a ‘light lobster lunch’ leave me thoroughly satisfied and in the mood to tackle even the longest bus ride to the arrival hall.
That’s fortunate, because Doha is a big, busy international hub with only one terminal (however many interchanges they say it has), and I’ve had some of the longest airport bus rides of my life here: after 12 hours. Minutes of endless peripheral roads I started to wonder if the driver might have gotten lost or if the operation had been outsourced to Arriva.
The buses are in fact typical of one of the complaints made about Hamad International – that, even more than elsewhere, your airport experience depends on how rich you are, with fast-track services. everything for premium passengers, and some rather crazy security checks and transfer arrangements for the rest of us. There are economy buses (which look like buses), business (which look spacious and beautiful, with soft leather seats) and first (which look like gentlemen’s clubs on wheels).
The terminal itself is busy – it always is, with 700 flights a day – but everything to work. The huge circular central link bustles like Tokyo’s famous pedestrian crossing in Shibuya, with passengers moving efficiently from one wing to the other; and where Manchester had defective travelers, Doha has a slick driverless monorail in the terminal, which takes 90 seconds to save you a nine-minute walk.
There are reading rooms (where no one reads because they’re all playing on their phones), there are art installations (same), there are children’s playgrounds (where parents Are be careful, as the climbing equipment is, perhaps unwisely, made of hard bronze which causes bruising).
And of course there are shops. Hermès and the rest don’t even seem to be the craziest. That title belongs to a store that sells gold – not just jewelry, but actual solid slabs of it – and which, with all the subtlety you’d expect from the local super-rich, is called Gold.
Further options to empty your wallet can be found at the far northern end of the terminal, around the orchard. This spectacular 6,000-square-foot indoor forest opened in 2022, and while it may be a (literal) fig leaf for even more luxury retail – Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Armani et al cluster around it, in much the same way that JD Sports sits by the toilets in Manchester – it’s quite nice too. Above, a large curved geodesic glass ceiling lets in light, only vaguely resembling the interstellar spaceship from a science fiction movie, shortly before the computer malfunctions and starts killing all the poor, hyper-sleeping humans.
You can walk through it at canopy height via a beautiful curved walkway, or wander around the leafy green spaces on the ground floor. Downstairs there’s a slight ‘bums in the city park’ vibe, thanks to the number of people sitting on the benches (thankfully no cider) – but this is still, hands down, the most beautiful part of the airport I’ve ever been to.
Did I regret leaving? Well, not so much. And therein lies the problem (or the pub, if it’s Manchester). Because yes, Hamad is brilliant, and Manchester is making great efforts to be so; but airports will always just be a necessary evil, like real estate agents or Michael Ball. The best is always the one you can leave the fastest.
Ed Grenby traveled as a guest of Qatar Airways (qatarairways.com). Manchester-Doha return fares from £630, or £3,256 in business class.