Qatar Airways announces expansion

The Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa will become Qatar Airways’ 20th destination on the African continent, on 18 September 2013, followed a month later by Clark International Airport in the Philippines from 28 October 2013.

Effective 1 March 2014, Philadelphia will become the airline’s fifth US gateway.

Qatar Airways is also significantly increasing capacity to Pakistan where it currently operates 17 flights each week across four cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar.

Beginning next month from 1 June, Qatar Airways will step up frequency to Pakistan by 60% to 28 flights each week – Karachi up from daily to double daily; Lahore from four to seven flights a week; and Peshawar securing an additional flight to three services each week.

“Yet again Qatar Airways is bucking the trend across the industry demonstrating that we are resilient in times of global economic austerity because while others are cutting back, we see the opportunities to expand our global footprint,” said Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer, Akbar Al Baker. “Joining the oneworld global alliance later this year will also present tremendous travel options and benefits to our passengers and to those of partner carriers in the alliance.”

Qatar Airways currently operates twice-daily scheduled flights to the capital Manila.

“We have been looking to fly to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for some time, and extremely delighted we will be able to do so later year as new aircraft join the fleet. And Clark International Airport in the Philippines provides us with great opportunities to boost our presence in the Greater Manila area and northern region of Luzon Island. This comes as good news for the well travelled Filipino community with ever increasing demand for flights to and from the country,” added Al Baker.