The Red-Eye That Actually Let Me Sleep

I am a management consultant, which means I basically live in airports.

I have taken hundreds of red-eye flights over the past decade, and I am notoriously terrible at sleeping on planes.

Even in most business class seats, I toss and turn. I hear every cough, every galley noise, and every heavy footstep. I usually arrive at my destination feeling like a zombie.

Ted from CEOFLIGHTS promised me that flying the Qatar Airways QSuite from LAX to Doha would be different. I was skeptical, but the $3,400 savings he found made it an easy decision to try.

The trip started off poorly. We sat at the gate at LAX for forty minutes due to some paperwork issue, which pushed back our departure and messed with my sleep timing. I was already frustrated before we even pushed back.

But once we were in the air, the flight attendant came by and offered the turndown service. They put a proper mattress pad on the seat, provided a real pillow, and gave me pajamas.

I closed the privacy door to my suite, put in my earplugs, and for the first time in my professional life, I got seven straight hours of deep, REM sleep on an airplane.

Waking up to the smell of coffee with only two hours left in the flight was a revelation. I actually enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while watching a movie.

I landed at Hamad International feeling completely human. I went straight to my client site and crushed a four-hour presentation. Ted was right; the door changes everything.