Qatar Airways’ Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Algiers, Tunis flights to go up

Qatar Airways, the flag-carrier airline of Qatar, has said it is exploring the possibility of enhancing the frequency of daily flights between Sri Lanka and Doha from two to three.

Qatar Airways will also increase the number of flights to Kuala Lumpur from 7 flights to 10 flights a week from June 1, 2009.

Its 4 flights to Algiers will be increased to 6 weekly flights from October 1, 2009, and the number of flights to Tunis will go up from 4 flights a week to 5 flights from October 5, 2009. 

In a statement, Rajeewa Jayaweera, regional manager of Qatar Airways for many countries including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and the Maldives, said that, “with the current peaceful situation in Sri Lanka, we are now closely and seriously looking at new opportunities to launch the third flight connecting the United States.” 

Qatar Airways, according to Jayaweera, currently flies to over 80 destinations, and Sri Lanka is one of the carrier’s main destinations in its promotional campaign. 

Qatar Airways, based in Doha, the capital of Qatar, is one of the few five-star airlines in the world.  

Apart from Sri Lanka, the destinations on Qatar Airways’ promotional campaign list include Goa (India), Seychelles, Cairo and Bangkok.  

The airline said it was now in the process of “consolidating its network in its flying routes and is satisfied with its performance despite the global financial crisis.” 

Therefore, before the end of 2009, Qatar Airways plans to raise the number of destinations to 90, Jayaweera said in the statement.

He is of the opinion that Sri Lanka should have bigger runways in its airports, especially the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo, to attract “next-generation” aircraft such as Airbus A 380, Airbus A 350 and Boeing 767 Dreamliner. 

Qatar Airways said in the statement that, with six new routes planned across India, Australia and Europe over the next 10 months and new aircraft joining the fleet at an average rate of one a month, the carrier was “driving forward with resilience.”

The airline plans to raise its current fleet size of 68 aircraft to over 110 planes by 2013 and destinations served are planned to go up from 84 to over 120 in the next five years.

In addition, it has placed orders, in the long term, for over 200 aircraft costing over US $40 billion.  

Qatar Airways also announced that it has become the first and only airline based in the Middle East to join the Aviation Global Deal (AGD) Group, the industry-wide body comprising “select” airlines that aim at helping develop a global policy to tackle aviation emissions.