PowerPoint party
These are the reasons that Monday’s D.C. launch party for Qatar Airways was totally different from your average D.C. party:
1. It spared no expense. The party favor was an iPod Nano, and the food was some top-shelf lobster and lamb.
2. There was a half-hour-long “virtual symphony,” which was nothing more than a glorified PowerPoint presentation promoting the airline (“Fly direct from D.C.!”).And a mime conductor stood on stage “virtually directing” the movement on the screen. It was like watching a huge iPhone.
3. Still, somehow the glorified sales pitch managed to attract such VIPs as former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and CNN’s Richard Quest (one person close to the event told Yeas & Nays that “you’d be shocked” to learn how much it cost to get Quest to speak at the event).
4. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker bragged about Qatar Airways’ policy of not hiring stewardesses over the age of 35 and warned the audience, “Don’t believe the crap Lufthansa tells you.”
5. A Bill Clinton impersonator joked, “D.C. is the only place where the turbulence begins after you land.”
