QATAR AIRWAYS ADDS LOS ANGELES AS EXPANSION CONTINUES IN 2016
(Posted 04th January 2016)
Aficionados of Qatar Airways have yet more reason to smile after the Doha based national airline of the State of Qatar added Los Angeles as their first new destination this year on New Year’s Day.
The City of Angels is Qatar Airways’ first West Coast destination and will be followed by flights to Boston in mid March and Atlanta on the 01st of June this year.
While Los Angeles will be served daily in a two class Boeing B777-200LR will Philadelphia be the airline’s first US destination using the Airbus A350 on a daily basis, also effective 01st of January.
Passengers from Qatar Airways’ East Africa destinations Entebbe / Uganda, Kigali / Rwanda, Nairobi / Kenya and three destinations in Tanzania, namely Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, will now be able to connect at the airline’s hub airport Hamad International in Doha to yet more cities in North America, raising the level of competition among the Gulf airlines flying to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
While some US legacy carriers have last year launched a rabid campaign against not just Qatar Airways but all Gulf carriers over alleged government subsidies have all three, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways rejected these allegations. The US aviation administration has not at this stage followed the demands to curb destinations and frequencies by among others Qatar Airways’ partner in the OneWorld alliance, American Airlines, which reportedly soured relations on alliance level considerably. The entry of Qatar Airways into the OneWorld alliance was seen as a considerably quality boost for this alliance – none of the other two have a leading Gulf carrier among their members – but the anti Gulf airlines coalition among US and some European legacy carriers has not gone down well in Doha, nor in the other capitals like Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Qatar Airways is one of the fastest growing airlines, operating one of the youngest fleets in the world. Now in its 18th year of operation does Qatar Airways now operate a fleet of 175 aircraft, flying to more than 150 key business and leisure destinations across six continents.
Qatar Airways in 2015 again won Airline of the Year, Best Business Class Airline Seat and Best Airline in the Middle East at the 2015 Skytrax Awards. This is the third time the airline won the accolade of Airline of the Year.
