Qatar Airways ups flights to several key destinations

Qatar Airways is to implement capacity increases to an array of destinations across its global network from 1 March 2011.

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 Middle East 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.

The European additions follows the recent news 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, “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.”

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 27 March 2011

Dar Es Salaam 12 flights a week to 14 (double daily), from 27 March 2011

Paris 14 flights a week to 16 from 27 March 2011

Geneva 5 flights a week to 7 (daily), effective 2 May 2011

Barcelona Narrow-body aircraft replaced with Airbus A330, from 27 March 2011

Copenhagen 6 to 7 flights a week (daily), from 27 March 2011

Muscat 21 flights a week to 24, from 27 March 2011

Bengaluru Narrow-body aircraft replaced with Airbus A330, from 1 March 2011

Qatar Airways yesterday (January 17) began flights to the Romanian capital Bucharest and the Hungarian capital Budapest. It will start flights to Belgium’s capital Brussels on 31 January; and Germany’s car manufacturing centre of Stuttgart on 6 March 2011. The airline launches its 100th destination on 6 April with four flights a week to the Syrian city of Aleppo.