India remains, and will continue to be, a key market for Qatar Airways as part of the airline’s long-term commitment to one of the fastest growing economies in the world, chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker has said.
“India is the largest single market served by Qatar Airways,” he explained while speaking in the northern Indian city of Jalandhar yesterday to celebrate the recent launch of flights to nearby Amritsar.
It was on October 12 that Qatar Airways’ maiden flight to the northern Indian state of Punjab landed in Amritsar. Two weeks later, the airline launched scheduled flights to Goa, heralding the arrival of Qatar Airways as the only full-service scheduled global carrier to both destinations.
With Amritsar and Goa both served four times a week from the airline’s Doha hub, the airline has increased capacity to India to 64 flights a week spread across 10 cities.
These include daily non-stop flights between Doha and Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.
Qatar Airways currently operates a modern fleet of 71 aircraft to 84 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Far East and North America.
“Qatar and India share a very special relationship and friendship, and we applaud the local authorities for developing air links to this country over the years and help spread our award-winning Five Star service to more points,” al-Baker said.
The CEO was of the view that the new Amritsar flights will greatly help commerce and industry in the city and the neighbouring business capitals of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Chandigarh for the export of textiles, sports goods and food, manufactured and produced in Punjab, to the Middle East and beyond.
Home to the Golden Temple – the holy place of worship for Sikhs – al-Baker said that the Amritsar route would cater for the well travelled Punjabi community worldwide.
“Punjabis have firmly established their home and work in cities across the world, yet have had very limited air access to Punjab for many years with the main option being to fly into Delhi and travel by road or train for the long journey to this part of north India,” he pointed out.
Qatar Airways’ passengers flying from North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East to Doha have excellent onward late evening connections to Amritsar with the return flight being early morning departures.
The airline is operating the route using a two-class Airbus A320, with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 seats in Economy Class.
“We look forward to beginning services to Australia on December 6 with non-stop flights between Doha and Melbourne,” al-Baker added.
Qatar Airways has plans to develop its international network further during 2010 by adding Sydney as its second Australian destination as well as two further cities in Europe.
Al-Baker was accompanied by Qatar Airways senior vice president (commercial operations Qatar and Indian subcontinent) Fathi al-Shehab and regional manager (India) Naveen Chawla. |
