Qatar Airways’ inaugural flight to Chicago touched down at the US city’s O’Hare International Airport yesterday.
The arrival marked the start of a new scheduled passenger service direct from Doha to Chicago, which becomes Qatar Airways’ fourth US destination, following New York, Washington DC and Houston.
The route will initially operate three times a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) before rising to daily on 15 June 2013. Qatar Airways had originally intended to launch with daily flights, but the continued grounding of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner forced it to change its plans.
Present at Chicago O’Hare airport to welcome the maiden flight was Qatar Airways’ CEO Akbar Al Baker.
“I would like to take this special opportunity to thank the people of Chicago and local airport authorities for their great support in helping Qatar Airways launch passenger flights to this vibrant city,” Al Baker said on arrival at O’Hare.
“After more than five successful years of operations in North America, we are pleased to introduce Chicago as our fourth and newest US gateway and look forward to welcoming travellers from the Midwest and its catchment area to fly with us to many parts of the world and, similarly welcome visitors from around the world to this great city,” he added.
Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he believed the new service would generate “more than US$200 million in annual economic impact” for the city.
Qatar Airways’ Doha–Chicago route will be operated using a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a two-class configuration, with 42 seats in business class and 293 in economy.
