Qatar Airways reveals new Al Mourjan Business Class lounge in Doha

Oneworld carrier Qatar Airways opened a brand new Business Class lounge at its home base in Doha this week, in the form of the new ‘Al Mourjan – The Garden’ facility, which is located in the airport’s new northern extension and overlooks ‘The Orchard’ – a Jewel-esque retail development, which includes a waterfall centrepiece.

Facilities at the new lounge include a gym, a spa, and à la carte dining, alongside the usual shower facilities and self-serve buffet options, while future brand collaborations will apparently see a Dior spa and a Louis Vuitton cafe offered as paid features, if you’re looking for something different from the ‘lounge norm’.

Crucially though, this lounge will provide a long-needed capacity increase at the airline’s two main peak departure times – from midnight to 3am and from 7am to 9am each day – since it will operate alongside the existing Al Mourjan facility, almost doubling the lounge footprint and seat count across these two locations combined.

Lounge overview

The new Al Mourjan – The Garden lounge spans 7,400 square metres and has seating capacity for 707 passengers, making it slightly smaller than the existing Al Mourjan South lounge, which accommodates around 900 guests.

“At Qatar Airways, excellence is embedded in the core of our brand, and as we continue to evolve our offerings, we choose to provide our passengers with the very best experiences in aviation and hospitality. Passengers can now enhance their journey to a new level at our newly opened Al Mourjan Business Lounge – The Garden at Hamad International Airport. This world-class lounge showcases a sophisticated way of travel, centred in comfort, wellness and nature. I welcome our premium passengers to experience this spectacular addition to our signature lounge portfolio.”

Akbar Al Baker, CEO, Qatar Airways

The Garden lounge is located at the northern extension of the airport, between the new D and E concourses, which is a long distance from the main southern section with the ‘Lamp Bear’ and existing shopping and lounge precinct, but is linked by a train system.

Simply walk or take the train to North Node, Concourse C, and access the lounge via escalators to the right, before the Oryx Garden Hotel (another new facility, supplementing the original one).

The lounge is located at The Orchard, an almost carbon copy of Jewel Changi Airport, and indeed it overlooks this beautiful new 6,000 square metre garden, filled with more than 300 trees and over 25,000 plants sourced from sustainable forests around the world, from one level above.

Based on your departure gate, or your preference, you can now choose which of the two Al Mourjan lounges to visit when departing in Business Class from Doha with Qatar Airways or a Oneworld carrier like British Airways or Finnair.

Lounge amenities

Features in the Al Mourjan – The Garden lounge, which is open 24 hours a day, include:

• 24 single and double “quiet rooms” with recliner chairs for relaxation, available free of charge for the first six hours
• Showers, washrooms and dressing rooms
• Business areas
• A nursery and children’s play room
• A games room
• A gym
• A smoking room
• Seven spa treatment rooms

For those who prefer to remain active before their flight or while in transit, the gym features treadmills and elliptical exercise bikes.

If a more relaxing vibe is appealing, the spa area offers manicure and pedicure stations, neck and shoulder massage chairs, relaxation chairs and treatment rooms, though for specific treatments expect to pay an additional fee, in common with the Qatar Al Safwa First Class lounge.

Food and beverage options

As far as dining is concerned, this new lounge is split into a West Wing and an East Wing.

The East Wing hosts the main dining areas, where you can self-serve food from hot and cold buffets, as well as sushi & salad, coffee & patisserie, and cocktail & bistro bar offerings.

There is also the option for à la carte dining, which is great for a Business Class lounge and will remind many of our readers of the carrier’s own Premium Lounge at Singapore Changi Airport.

Here’s how the airline describes the selection at the East Wing.

Buffet Area

• Extensive variety of international and local cuisine, including soups, appetisers and entrees
• Fresh bakery selection
• Cake and desserts selection
• Sushi station
• Made to order salads, breakfast bowls and poke bowls

Coffee and Patisserie Bar

• Fresh fruits, juices and smoothies
• Selection of pastries
• Made to order sandwiches
• Barista prepared hot and cold beverages
• Gelato and ice cream station

Cocktail and Bistro Bar

• Savoury bites and appetisers
• Wine, spirits, beer, cocktails and mocktails

The West Wing of the lounge is dedicated to the showers, quiet areas, prayer rooms and meeting rooms, but also offers light bites at a coffee & patisserie bar and a refreshment station, as described below.

Coffee and Patisserie Bar

• Fresh fruits, juices and smoothies
• Selection of pastries
• Made to order sandwiches
• Barista prepared hot and cold beverages

Refreshment Station

• Tea and coffee selection
• Light snacks
• Arabic sweets
• Popular beverages

Brand collaboration

As reported by One Mile at a Time, the new Al Mourjan lounge will also boast two brand collaborations with Dior and Louis Vuitton, in the form of a spa and a cafe respectively.

These will be available for an additional charge, and it will be interesting to see what transpires here, though for most of our readers it’s the main complimentary lounge features that are of most interest.

Lounge access

One important aspect of this lounge, in common with the Al Mourjan South facility, is that status alone won’t get you through the door.

Al Mourjan lounges are specifically for those departing on a Qatar Airways or Oneworld airline in:

• First Class; or
• Business Class*

* Except those who booked Qatar’s Business Lite fare, or who upgraded to Business Class using Avios points

Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald members travelling in Economy or Premium Economy are not eligible for access here. In these cases you will be directed to the Qatar Airways Gold or Platinum lounges respectively, or the Oryx lounge.

The main benefit – cutting down lounge crowding

While the new Al Mourjan The Garden lounge looks great and has some nice new features, fundamentally it’s not that different to the existing facility, albeit with more plants and a different view.

The main benefit here for most if our readers is lounge crowding.

Qatar Airways flies almost 7,000 Business Class seats per day out of Doha Hamad International, but like most hub-and-spoke carriers this capacity is not spread evenly, with 2,400 of those seats departing in the 3-hour window between midnight and 3am, and a further 2,100 in the 2-hour morning rush between 7am and 9am.

That means 65% of departing Business Class passengers occupy the lounge during only 20% of the day, and that causes the existing Al Mourjan South facility to suffer from significant overcrowding during these peak periods (but blissful serenity outside those times).

The opening of this new 707-seat Al Mourjan The Garden lounge increases total seating capacity for Business Class customers by nearly 80%, and should significantly alleviate this twice-daily issue for the carrier.

Crucially for our readers, two out of Qatar’s three daily Doha-Singapore flights fall into the peak departure window – at 2.40am and 8.20am. Only QR942 at 8pm enjoys a more serene departure. Now there should be more lounge serenity for all.

Qatar Airways has opened its latest Al Mourjan Business Class lounge for passengers travelling in premium cabins at its Doha hub, in the form of ‘The Garden’ at the airport’s new northern extension.

This will primarily take the strain off the existing 900-seat lounge, now dubbed ‘Al Mourjan Business Lounge – South’, which continues to operate, but as many of our readers will know suffers from overcrowding during the carrier’s peak departure banks.

New facilities that will no doubt be worth a look are the spa, the gym, and the quiet rooms you can occupy for up to six hours for some rest, while future enhancements will included brand collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Dior.

We’ll be passing through Doha twice in June for a Europe trip, and will certainly take a closer look at what ‘The Garden’ lounge has to offer then. In the meantime, do share your experiences in the comments section below.

(Cover Photo: Qatar Airways)