Qatar Airways boosts global capacity

Qatar Airways has announced capacity increases to an array of destinations across its global network to be phased in from March 1.

Growing passenger demand and additional aircraft joining the fleet have prompted the capacity hike, part of the Doha-based airline’s aggressive expansion strategy to offer consumers more choice.

Expansion highlights include three additional weekly flights to Kuala Lumpur making it a double daily operation and two extra services deployed to the Tanzanian capital Dar Es Salaam, also taking frequency up to twice a day.

The daily Bengaluru (Bangalore) services to southern India will be upgraded from a narrow-body Airbus A320 aircraft to a wide-body A330, marking the first anniversary of the route’s launch.

Flights in the Gulf will increase with three extra weekly services to the Omani capital Muscat with capacity rising to 24 flights each week.

In Europe, where Qatar Airways is concentrating much of its expansion over the next two months with new route launches to Bucharest, Budapest, Brussels and Stuttgart, the airline has also earmarked a number of capacity increases to and from existing destinations in its network.

The double daily Paris route will rise to 16 weekly services with an extra two flights a week, while Geneva capacity will increase to daily following the introduction of two new weekly flights.

News of the European additions follows the recent announcement that Qatar Airways’ Copenhagen route will go daily with one extra flight a week, and the introduction of a wide body Airbus A330 on the daily Barcelona services. 

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said: “These capacity increases yet again demonstrate Qatar Airways’ commitment to building our route profiles in line with our strategy to offer passengers more travel options.

“With an average of more than one new aircraft being introduced into the fleet every month, Qatar Airways is looking to deploy the new capacity on existing routes while, at the same time launch new routes to join our ever-growing international network.
“From Europe and Africa to the Middle East and Asia, our network will see more capacity, improved schedules and, more importantly, more choice for our large passenger base and new clientele. There will be further route expansion announcements over the next few weeks.”

All the extra flights operate non-stop from Qatar Airways’ Doha hub, offering excellent connections to and from key feeder markets.

Highlights of the expansion programme are:

Kuala Lumpur    11 flights a week to 14 (double daily) from March 27
Dar Es Salaam    12 flights a week to 14 (double daily), from March 27
Paris     14 flights a week to 16 from March 27
Geneva      5 flights a week to 7 (daily), effective May 2
Barcelona      Narrow-body aircraft replaced with Airbus A330, from March 27
Copenhagen      6 to 7 flights a week (daily), from March 27
Muscat      21 flights a week to 24, from March 27
Bengaluru      Narrow-body aircraft replaced with Airbus A330, from March 1

Qatar Airways will begin flights to the Romanian capital Bucharest and the Hungarian capital Budapest on January 17; Belgium’s capital Brussels on January 31; and Germany’s car manufacturing centre of Stuttgart on March 6.

The airline launches its 100th destination on April 6 with four flights a week to the Syrian city of Aleppo.