Qatar Airways expands capacity; bucks global trend

Qatar Airways has announced route expansion in three continents together with a huge increase in capacity in Pakistan as part of the Doha-based carrier’s continued aggressive growth strategy.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker announced the expansion during a press conference on the opening day of Arabian Travel Market (ATM) .
The Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa will become the carrier’s 20th destination on the African continent, launching on September 18, followed a month later by Clark International Airport in the Philippines from October 28.
Effective March 1 next year, Philadelphia will become the airline’s fifth US gateway.
In addition, Qatar Airways is 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 June 1, Qatar Airways will step up frequency to Pakistan by 60 percent 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,” he said.
“Our three new routes we are announcing today show we have faith in expanding our operations across different continents. This year for example has certainly been the year of growth in the Middle East with five of our eight scheduled route launches in the region alone,” said the CEO.
“We stepped up capacity to the US, introducing Chicago as our fourth US gateway last month and will now add Philadelphia next year,” he said.
“Philadelphia is one of the major hubs of the soon-to-be-merged American Airlines/US Airways and will provide Qatar Airways’ customers with onward connections to over 100 cities across the US,” he said.
“With the implementation of code share agreements with American Airlines and JetBlue which offer numerous connections beyond our US gateways, Qatar Airways is making big strides to strengthen its presence in the United States to ultimately give our passengers greater travel options,” he said.
Al-Baker said: “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 traveled Filipino community with ever increasing demand for flights to and from the country.”
Qatar Airways currently operates twice-daily scheduled flights to Manila.
Al-Baker also gave Middle East and international media an update on the reintroduction of the carrier’s five Boeing 787 Dreamliners, the first of which began flying again last week on the Doha — Dubai route, with gradual phasing in over the next few weeks of the other aircraft on long-haul routes such as London Heathrow, Munich, Frankfurt and Zurich.