PARIS was bracing for the season’s first snows as a Qatar Airways (QA) flight touched down at Charles De Gaulle airport from Doha on a late November afternoon, marking the 10th anniversary of the airline’s service to the City of Lights. Hours later, another aircraft from the same carrier landed at Nice, but this time it was a brand new service to the French Riviera.
The two events highlighted the Qatari national airline’s growing prominence in a region other than its own and its confidence in capturing a greater share of the European market at a time when many Western carriers are struggling.
As Qatar Airways’ CEO Akbar Al Baker remarked in Paris: “While other airlines are shrinking, Qatar Airways is doing exactly the opposite. We’re expanding with additional vigour.” The carrier flies to 95 destinations and has a modern fleet of 91 planes. Its landmark Doha-Aleppo, Syria 100th route materialises on April 6. Aleppo will be the fifth route of the new year after Budapest, Bucharest, Brussels and Stuttgart, again highlighting the vigorous European thrust of the airline.
As well as offering connectivity, Qatar Airways’ French services are helping boost the French economy. France is Qatar’s fourth largest trading partner with business between the two growing 58 per cent in two years. Around 100 French companies operate in Qatar, Al Baker noted. The carrier operates twice daily to Paris and three times weekly to Nice. A recent Skytrax survey places Qatar Airways as the world’s third best and the Middle East’s best airline with its business class catering and service as globally the best.
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Qatar Airways’ fleet has grown phenomenally |
It was also the world’s first airline to pass the IATA Operational Safety Audit with 100 per cent compliance in 2003, again passing the test at renewal periods.
Al Baker confirmed that by 2013 QA will serve 120 global destinations with 120 aircraft. The company has placed orders for 80 Airbus A350s, 60 Boeing 787s and 32 Boeing 777s. The 787 Dreamliner though is three years behind plan. Qatar Airways has also booked five twin-deck Airbus 380 superjumbos with deliveries starting from 2012.
Reacting sharply to criticism that Middle East carriers receive special help from their governments, Al Baker claimed the problem of Western airlines is that they cannot reach the sophistication levels of leading Middle East carriers and are also unable to bring costs down. “There’s no easy money with us. We go to the international market to finance our aircraft,” he said. “They don’t have the capability to grow; their hubs are saturated – we fill the demand with new hubs.”
Qatar’s selection to host the Fifa World Cup in 2022 entails investment of around $60 billion on infrastructure and stadia with the travel sector expected to benefit from the spinoff. The World Cup has also been boosted by the $14.5-billion New Doha International Airport (NDIA) development which Al Baker is overseeing.
NDIA’s Phase 1 (completion 2012) will be able to serve 24 million passengers annually and beyond 2015, capacity will grow to 50 million. The new airport will incorporate 80 contact gates, 25,000 sq m of retail space and comfortable lounges. The 2,200-hectare site, half of which will be reclaimed from the sea, will include an aircraft maintenance centre, a cargo terminal, a free trade zone and business park, a people mover or monorail, an airport hotel adjacent to the terminal and a 100-room hotel within the terminal.