Thought I should add our experience since we were on Qatar Airways on Cheetah 1. Going over was no problem at all. LA to Doha was 16 hrs. We had a scheduled layover of 9+ hrs. in Doha so I arranged for a hotel room as instructed. We also hoped to take a free city tour that was offered but we arrived too late for the last tour of the evening at 8 pm. Went to the special desk to get a hotel voucher & they arranged a private car to take us to the Oryx Hotel about 15 mins. from the airport. It's a nice hotel & since we didn't want to sleep, the concierge arranged a 1 hour tour around town in a private car which cost about $30 US. There is construction everywhere in Doha & we would have liked more time to explore in daytime. (BTW, the airline is now offering free hotel if you'd like to stay over a day or two to do that.) Two hours before flight time, the private car appeared and we returned to the airport for the 9 hr. flight to CapeTown. The flights themselves were great in business class - very comfortable seats, good food & great service.

The return trip turned out to be a 48 hour ordeal because of the new restrictions in place on air space & security. We left Joburg on time but realized during the flight that they had changed the flight plan resulting in a late arrival in Doha. So we missed the connection to LA but the airline had a rep at the gate to reroute us. They rebooked us thru Dallas on American but that flight also arrived late. In Dallas we had to go thru Immigration & Customs, claim our bags, recheck them, have all electronics wrapped & boxed & go thru security again. Both of our iPads, the camera & my iPhone 6S cell phone were taken. Ray was able to keep is iPhone 5 because it fit inside the diagram they had. The new boarding passes they gave us didn't have Pre-Check on them so we had to go thru the long, regular line. Also the Global Entry machine to read our passports & fingerprints didn't work so we had to be processed manually thru there. We were able to keep our passports the whole time so didn't have the problem Betty had. We arrived at the gate exactly at departure time and, although the plane was sitting there, we were not allowed to board. So they rebooked us on a flight 3 hrs. later to LA and we finally made it home 8 hrs. after the expected arrival time. Stuff happens, as they say, but if they don't get this sorted out soon, Qatar Airways is in big trouble as Marc said. I should add that Michelle & Ed Langmaid from San Diego were on these flights with us & they did make the connection in Dallas by the skin of their teeth. They didn't have the glitches with Global Entry & Pre-Check that we had and they run really fast!

Overall, despite the return problems, it was a fabulous trip that we will never forget. The arrangements were perfect at every stop and it was such a pleasure being with Ngaire and Ken as always. Also, our group added immeasurably to the experience and we have come home with more new BFFs!