Qatar Airways Begins East African Expansion
By Novell Zwange – Doha, QATAR – The luxurious airliner, Qatar Airways today announced an expansion of its East African network with 12 additional flights across two capital cities – Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam.
The daily Doha – Nairobi flights have increased to 12-flights-a-week. From January 3, an additional two flights will take capacity up to double daily. The expansion comes after five successful years of operations to Kenya’s capital city.
The Tanzanian capital, Dar Es Salaam, currently served daily, will receive an additional four flights a week from January 2. An additional flight from February 14 will take frequency up to 12 weekly services.
Both routes are operated with an A320 aircraft, featuring 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy.
The African subcontinent is one of Qatar Airways’ largest markets by the number of destinations served – and the region alone makes up over 10% of the airline’s international network.
Qatar Airways, the award-winning Doha-based airline currently flies to 14 cities across Africa, including Alexandria, Algiers, Cairo, Luxor, Casablanca, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Lagos, Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Seychelles, Tripoli and Tunis.
From each of these cities, the airline offers convenient connections via its Doha hub to many points on the airline’s network covering Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and North and South America.
Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said: “We are pleased to introduce additional capacity to Africa and offer the travelling public greater options for air travel to and from the region.
“As part of our growth strategy, we continue to step up frequency on existing routes, which is a strong lever to facilitate growth in the business and tourism sectors.
“We have been serving Nairobi since November 2005 and this has proved one of our biggest success stories in Africa, so we are extremely pleased to be offering our passengers even more choice with additional frequency going up to double daily,” he added.
“Similarly, the Dar Es Salaam route has performed exceptionally well, almost four years old, having launched in January 2007.”
Over the next four months, the airline’s growth focuses on Europe with four new destinations being introduced – Budapest (January 17), Bucharest (January 17), Brussels (January 31), and Stuttgart (March 6), before launching its 100th point to the Syrian city of Aleppo on April 6.
The airline currently operates a modern fleet of 93 aircraft to 95 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North and South America. The latest addition was the French Mediterranean city of Nice on November 24.
By 2013, Qatar Airways plans to serve 120 destinations worldwide with a fleet of 120 aircraft averaging three years old.
| New Flights To East Africa – Schedules (all times are local)
DOHA – NAIROBI
Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays Depart Doha QR534 at 1230 hrs, arrive in Nairobi at 1750 hrs Depart Nairobi QR535 at 1850 hrs, arrive in Doha at 2345 hrs
Tuesdays and Fridays – from January 2 Depart Doha QR534 at 1230 hrs, arrive in Nairobi at 1750 hrs Depart Nairobi QR535 at 1850 hrs, arrive in Doha at 2345 hrs
DOHA – DAR ES SALAAM
Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays – from January 2 Depart Doha QR546 at 1120 hrs, arrive in Dar Es Salaam at 1715 hrs Depart Dar Es Salaam QR547 at 1815 hrs, arrive in Doha at 2350 hrs
Saturdays – from February 14 Depart Doha QR546 at 1120 hrs, arrive in Dar Es Salaam at 1715 hrs Depart Dar Es Salaam QR547 at 1815 hrs, arrive in Doha at 2350 hrs |
Qatar Airways was recently voted as third best airline in the world following the annual Skytrax survey of 18 million international passengers. In the survey, the airline was also voted as having the best Business Class service and catering in the world, as well as being honoured as the Best Airline in The Middle East for the fifth consecutive year.
Qatar Airways also became the first airline to receive the Staff Service Excellence Award for the Middle East. The new award replaces the Best Cabin Staff in the Middle East category, which Qatar Airways has won for the past seven years. The expanded category now includes airline staff at all passenger touch points, including onboard, reservations, check-in and airport personnel.
Qatar Airways has orders for 80 Airbus A350s, 60 Boeing 787s and 32 Boeing 777s, with deliveries of the latter having started in November 2007. The airline is one of the customers of the twin-deck Airbus A380 ‘super jumbos’ with five on order and scheduled for delivery from 2012, by which time the New Doha International Airport would have opened.
