Qatar Airways launches daily Doha, Ahmedabad flights

Ahmedabad: Introducing its eighth Indian destination, Qatar Airways today inaugurated daily, non-stop flights between Ahmedabad and Doha, and said it would reach new destinations in the country soon.

Ahmedabad became the airline’s 11th new route of 2007 as Flight QR282 from Doha arrived at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport here in the early hours of this morning. According to the current schedule, this flight leaves Doha at 10.20 p.m. and arrives at Ahmedabad at 3.45 a.m.. The return flight, QR283, departs the Ahmedabad airport at 4.45 a.m. and arrives at Doha at 6 a.m..

Ahmedabad is the third new Indian destination this year after Chennai and Nagpur, the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Akbar al-Baker, told a news conference here. India today is, by far, the largest single market for Qatar Airways, he added.

With the addition of daily flights to Ahmedabad, Qatar Airways’ 81st route globally, it now operates 51 flights a week between Qatar and eight cities across India, the others being Mumbai, Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Nagpur. It serves Ahmedabad using an Airbus A320 in a two-class configuration of 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy.

Route expansion

Qatar Airways’ route expansion during 2007 included the launch of flights to New York, Washington, Dar es-Salaam, Bali, Ho Chi Minh City, Chennai, Geneva and Stockholm, Mr al-Baker said.

About its future plans, he said, by 2013, Qatar Airlines would acquire 50 new aircraft to make its fleet 110-strong. It has placed orders for 200 more aircraft in the next few years. Thirty two of these would be acquired by mid-2008. The Airlines was following a policy of continuous fleet renewal to ensure that none of its aircraft was more than five years old. This would reduce the maintenance cost substantially and ensure fuel efficiency as well. The average age of the fleet was three years.

Airport revamp

Mr al-Baker pointed out that the first phase of development of the New Doha International Airport will be completed in 2009, while the third and last phase, to be completed in 2015, would see dismantling of the existing airport. The USD 5.5 billion project would make Doha the world’s first airport to be designed and built specifically for the Airbus double-decker A380, the largest passenger aircraft ever built. The 2,200-hectare airport site will reclaim half of its land from the Arabian Gulf. The airport would have an initial capacity of handling 12 million passengers a year, increasing four-fold to 50 million by the time it is fully operational in 2015.