Qatar Airways has announced a significant increase in the capacity of its flights from Doha to the southern Indian city of Kochi by upgrading the aircraft to a wide-body Airbus 330 from narrow-body Airbus 321.
The A330 will be operational on all 11 frequencies to and from Kochi connecting to more than 125 destinations around the world via the airline’s hub in Doha. The announcement coincides with the national airline’s tenth anniversary of successful operations to the popular tourist city in Kerala.
“The decision to increase capacity to and from Kochi comes in time to meet growing passenger demand and reflects our aggressive expansion strategy to offer customers a superior travel experience and seamless connectivity,” said Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker.
“India is a very important part of our expansion strategy and this is evident by the operation of some 95 flights a week from 12 cities in the India network.”
Along with Kochi, Qatar Airways’ Indian operations cover daily services to Doha from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Bengaluru, and double daily flights from Delhi.
Qatar Airways operates the A330 flights to Kochi in a two-class configuration of 248 seats in Economy and 36 seats in Business Class. The aircraft features seatback TV screens providing all passengers in both cabins with the next generation interactive onboard entertainment system with a choice of more than 900 audio and video on demand options.
“In line with our commitment to this market and the consistent increase in demand from Indian passengers, we will continue to invest in our fleet and offer capacity to the routes where there is a need,” al-Baker said.
“There are a significant number of Indian expatriates from Kochi who are working in Qatar and the GCC. The increase in capacity will enable us to quickly meet the growing demand of these passengers,” he added.