Qatar Airways to resume Myanmar flights in October

By Pratap John, Chief Business Reporter...

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker, left, addresses a press conference at Arabian Travel Mart in Dubai on the airline’s expansion plans. With him is Qatar Airways’ Country Manager UAE Marwan Haber

After a four-year absence from the route, Qatar Airways will resume operations to Myanmar in October.

The national carrier will also fly to two destinations in Iraq – Erbil (from May 23) and Baghdad (from June 7), Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar al-Baker said in Dubai yesterday.
Qatar Airways flights to Yangon will again take off on October 3.

“With political reform taking place in Myanmar at a rapid pace, the interest in the South East Asian country has gathered momentum, both from a business and tourism perspective,” al-Baker said at a press conference on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Mart in Dubai.

The airline will launch flights to Kilimanjaro, its second gateway in Tanzania via Nairobi from July 25.
Beginning August 15, the airline will introduce its third destination in Africa - Mombasa in Kenya. 

The airline’s another key route that will come online in the next few months will be Perth in Australia, from July 3. To begin with, Perth will be connected to Doha three times a week, but will go daily at the peak of the holiday season in December.

Starting May 9, the airline’s European expansion continues with daily flights to the Croatian capital, Zagreb, operating via Budapest. 

Further route launches are planned to Belgrade (Serbia), Helsinki and Zanzibar (Tanzania).

In line with the airline’s strategy to increase frequency on existing routes to offer passengers more choice, Qatar Airways is also stepping up capacity to selected destinations in phases.

In Asia, the Kuala Lumpur route will be served three-times daily from September, up from the recently-expanded capacity of 17 flights each week.

In Europe, the Doha-Milan route will be upgraded to double daily this month from the current 11 a week.
In December, the Doha-Paris route will have an additional two flights taking frequency up to 18 services a week.
In the Middle East, three routes will benefit from additional capacity. Kuwait last month saw the introduction of a new daily flight taking frequency up to 49 services each week. 

From June, an extra seven flights will be operated on the route taking capacity up to 56 services – eight daily round-trip flights every week. 

Also in June, the Doha-Abu Dhabi route will go up to 42 flights each week with the introduction of a new daily service offering in total six daily flights. 

Having introduced two extra weekly flights on the Doha-Cairo route last month to take frequency up to 11 each week, capacity will be stepped up further next month with the addition of one extra flight a week.
And in Africa, more capacity will be introduced on the double daily Doha-Dar es Salaam route from next month. With seven services operating via Nairobi, these will become non-stop to Dar es Salaam effectively providing more seats direct to the Tanzanian capital.

In March, Qatar Airways introduced frequency hikes to other destinations – namely London Heathrow, up from four to five flights a day; the Algerian capital Algiers from seven to 11 services each week; Muscat in Oman from 24 to 31 flights each week; and the Indonesian capital of Jakarta from seven to 10 services a week.

“Today’s announcement reflects the importance Qatar Airways places on expanding its portfolio of destinations and frequency on existing routes to provide passengers with more choice, more flexibility and more travel options,” al-Baker said.

“We are entering new markets and strengthening our presence in established markets to provide a greater footprint. In particular, we are focusing on markets that are in need of extra capacity.

Qatar Airways has grown by some 22% in the first three months of this year with the national carrier hopeful of maintaining the positive trend in the months ahead, al-Baker said.

He said Qatar Airways maintained “consistent growth” in both passenger and cargo traffic, connecting some 113 destinations worldwide.

Three new destinations have already been added this year with many more to come before the year-end.
Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 15 years of operation, currently operating a modern fleet of 109 aircraft to destinations across the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

On the potential impact of low-cost carriers on Qatar Airways, al-Baker said, “Low-cost carriers are only low-cost where it has competition. It is not a successful model in the Middle East.”

He said the New Doha International Airport was set for inauguration on “12-12-12” (December 12 of this year).
“We look forward to the opening of the new airport, which will provide more facilities for our growing number of passengers,” al-Baker added.

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