Qatar Airways’ chief executive Akbar Al Baker has confirmed the launch of a further eight routes this financial year (running until end of March 2011), in addition to the seven already announced.
As previously reported on Business Traveller (See ‘Qatar Airways enters South America’) the airline has already launched daily flights Doha-Bengaluru (from February 22), followed by Copenhagen (four times weekly from March 28), Ankara (four times weekly from April 5), Tokyo (daily from April 26) and Barcelona (daily from June 7). Announced this week were flights to Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires, although the start dates have yet to be announced.
In a later conversation Mr Al Baker confirmed that another eight destinations would be added, with “four or five” of these being introduced before the end of this calendar year.
New aircraft deliveries are helping Qatar’s expansion, particularly the B777-200LR aircraft which is capable of extremely long flights. At present Qatar has six of these aircraft, with two of them being used on the Doha-Houston route, and two on the Melbourne route.
The other pair of B777-200LRs is being used for training throughout the network, but with another two arriving in coming months, it would allow Qatar to fly to both Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires with one pair (these flights will be served as one route initially), plus one other ultra long haul destination.
Until recently this additional long haul destination was assumed to be Sydney, but Al Baker has made it clear that he thinks that the city is over-served by airlines, and therefore Qatar would not be flying there in the near-future. This opens up the possibility of Qatar using these B777-200LR aircraft to fly to another destination.
For more information visit qatarairways.com.
Report by Tom Otley
CAPACITY INCREASES 2010
Phased capacity increase from start of northern summer schedules on March 28:-
| Geneva | Upgrade to wide body Airbus A330s | |
| Stockholm | Upgrade to Airbus A330s; up from 5 flights to DAILY | |
| Colombo | Up from 14 to 21 flights a week (THRICE DAILY) | |
| Kathmandu | Up from 14 to 21 flights a week (THRICE DAILY) | |
| Goa | Up from 4 to 7 flights a week (DAILY) | |
| Amritsar | Up from 4 to 7 flights a week (DAILY) | |
| Chennai | Upgrade to wide body Airbus A330s on selected flights | |
| Maldives | Up from 9 to 13 flights a week | |
| Seychelles | Upgrade to wide body Airbus A330s on selected flights | |
| Luxor | Up from 4 to 7 flights a week (DAILY) | |
| Guangzhou | Upgrade to Boeing 777s | |
| Shanghai | Upgrade to Boeing 777s; up from 5 flights a week to DAILY | |
| Seoul | De-linked from Osaka becoming non-stop daily from Doha | |
| Cape Town | Upgrade to Boeing 777s | |
| Johannesburg | Upgrade to Boeing 777s |
