At ITB Berlin, the world’s most important tourism fair, which is taking place this week in the German capital, Qatar Airways confirmed the addition of seven new cities to its network.
The Doha-based airline had already anticipated days ago that it would announce a major expansion during the event, and different hypotheses had been woven as to what the new destinations might be, and whether this would include resuming flights to cities abandoned in the pandemic, such as Buenos Aires.
But the mystery finally came to an end, and Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways, revealed that the airline will resume flights to Buenos Aires (from December 8), Beijing (March 26), Birmingham (from July 10), Casablanca (date to be confirmed), Davao (April 1), Nice (from May 9), Marrakesh (date to be confirmed), Osaka (March 1, 2024), Phnom Penh (October 29), Ras Al Khaimah (November 1) and Tokyo Haneda (June 1).
On the other hand, the new destinations are Trabzon (Turkey) from June 16; Lyon (France) from July 3; Toulouse (France), date to be confirmed; Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), date to be confirmed; Juba (South Sudan), date to be confirmed; Medan (Indonesia), from January 15, 2024; and Chittagong (Bangladesh), from March 11, 2024.
“The reason we have been very conservative in the dates we have set depend on the delivery of new aircraft by Airbus and Boeing,” Akbar Al Baker told the conference from Berlin.
Buenos Aires – Doha flights
Qatar Airways inaugurated the route between Doha and Buenos Aires in July 2010 with a daily flight via Sao Paulo/Guarulhos on Boeing 777-200LR aircraft.
This operation remained fairly successful until the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020. Although Qatar Airways resumed flights to Sao Paulo, several factors such as high local operating costs and the lack of wide-body aircraft following the dispute with Airbus over the A350s have hindered the return to the Argentine capital.
Although no details have yet been released regarding the operation to Buenos Aires, it should be noted that Qatar Airways currently operates two daily flights between Doha and Sao Paulo/Guarulhos using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
The return will be on December 8 and Akbar Al Baker took it upon himself to criticize at the press conference the high costs of operating in Buenos Aires, something he had already commented to Aviacionline during the IATA AGM that took place in Doha last year.
