News
Qatar Airways adds 14 destinations in 2016 and revisits A380 option
March 18th 2016
Speaking at ITB in Berlin last week, Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker, announced the addition of 14 destinations to the carrier’s network this year, including the world’s longest flight, between Doha and Auckland, which is 339kms more than Emirates Airline’s Dubai-Auckland service. Read More »
“These new destinations are where our customers want to go, and where we see the most opportunity to provide a best-in-class experience at great value,” Al Baker said. In Asia, apart from the daily B777-200LR route to Auckland from December 3, Qatar Airways plans to open a four-weekly rotation to Krabi and a thrice-weekly service to Chiang Mai from December.
The carrier’s new hub at Hamad International Airport in Doha is expanding. It serves more than 28 million passengers per annum, a number forecast to increase to 50 million in 2018.
Qatar Airways’ expansion is unrivalled. This year, it started service to Los Angeles (January 1), Ras Al Khaimah (February 2) and Sydney on March 1. On Wednesday, it opened an A350 service to Boston. It has previously announced Birmingham (March 30), Adelaide (May 2), Yerevan (May 15) and Atlanta (June 1). Commenting on the network expansion in Berlin, Al Baker said this would “rub salt in the wounds” of Delta Air Lines, one of its fiercest adversaries in the U.S.-Gulf carriers Open Skies confrontation. Delta cancelled its Atlanta-Dubai service on February 11, citing overcapacity created by “government-owned and subsidized airlines” for the decision.
Al Baker said the carrier might convert three options it has on A380 production slots given the drastically lower oil price, which he identified as a double edged sword. It has weakened demand and yields in the premium cabins, he said. The same sentiment was expressed by Emirates CEO, Sir Tim Clark, who said the carrier might downgrade its A380 Houston service to the B777 following a drop in demand from the corporate oil sector.
Clark told Reuters Emirates was still interested in the A380neo and that it could order up to 200 of the type. It appeared Airbus had shifted focus to a larger version of its A350, he said. Preliminarily dubbed the A350-8000, or -1100, the stretched A350 would use a derivative of the latest Rolls-Royce Trent XWB planned for the A350-1000. One source briefed on the plans said it would boost thrust to just over 100,000 pounds from the current 97,000.
Clark questioned Airbus's proposal to expand the A350 family and contrasted the clarity of Airbus’ wide-body decisions with those of rival Boeing. "There seems to be a certain amount of cloudiness down there. One minute they are quite keen. I don't know if they can afford to do the A380neo and the (new) A350," he told reporters. "Airbus has to rationalise a few things," he said.
Emirates confirmed it would delay the launch of its South and Central American “hub” in Panama City to late 2016/early 2017 after it secured approvals from only four of the thirteen countries it needed to support a wide ranging code share partnership with Panama’s Copa Airlines.
“Panama was a sort of entry point for South and Central America for us and has huge potential, but we needed to have the aero-political structures in place," Clark said. Flights via Dubai would offer access to India, the Middle East and North Africa “in a very clean and easy way", he said. “You may wonder why people would travel from Guatemala to Dubai, or from Belize or San Salvador, but we know there is quite a lot of business," the Emirates CEO said. “Panama itself is like a mini-Dubai when you look at some of the cities in Central and South America."
