Qatar Airways Confirms Auckland Route & Announces Flights To A Further 13 Destinations

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Qatar Airways’ CEO, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker used the opening day of ITB Berlin – the world’s largest international travel fair – to confirm the commencement of a Qatar Airways service between Doha and Auckland as well as what the airline called “a significant network expansion” of 13 new destinations. The new Qatar Airways routes are spread across four continents and the flight between Doha and Auckland will, at least for the time being, allow Qatar Airways to claim the world’s longest non-stop commercial flight.

Qatar Airways Auckland Route

Qatar Airways only recently commenced service between Doha and Sydney and is scheduled to start flights between Doha and Adelaide in May of this year. Now, from 3 December 2016, Qatar airways is scheduled to operate a daily service between Doha and Auckland using one of its Boeing 777-200LR aircraft on the following schedule:

QR920 DOH 02:10 – 04:30+1 day AKL
QR921 AKL 14:40 – 22:10 DOH

At 9,032 miles in distance the Doha – Auckland route will offer passengers the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world….

Screenshot courtesy of Great Circle Mapper

….and, at scheduled flight times of 16 hours and 20 minutes eastbound and 17 hours and 30 minutes westbound, these flights will take quite a bit of endurance from anyone flying in Economy Class.

The Qatar Airways 777-200LR comes with 44 Business Class seats and 217 standard Economy Class seats but, for anyone hoping for a touch of Middle Eastern opulence on the flight, you’re going to have to wait until Qatar Airways updates it’s aircraft – the 777-200LRs still currently feature the airline’s older lie-flat Business Class seats.

However, there is some good news for Economy Class passengers if SeatGuru’s facts and figures are to be believed.

Firstly, the Qatar Airways 777-200LR still only has 9-across seating in the Economy Class cabin and as long as this doesn’t get changed in a refit (don’t forget that the Qatar Airways CEO thinks 10-across seating is comfortable!) this means that passengers will have comparatively more seat-width than on a lot of other long-haul flights.

Qatar Airways 777-200LR Seat Plan Courtesy of SeatGuru – Click to Enlarge

Secondly, the seat pitch listed for this aircraft is a very generous 33″…..and I suspect that the Economy Class passengers are going to need every inch of that if they’re to survive a 17+ hour flight:

Qatar Airways Other Routes Announced

Qatar Airways announced services to a further 13 destinations (some of which are resumptions in service) alongside the announcement of the Doha – Auckland route and here they are by region:

Europe:

Pisa

From 2 August 2016 Qatar Airways will fly a daily service between Doha and Pisa using an Airbus A320 aircraft. The flight schedule is as follows:

QR135 DOH 01:35 – 06:55 PSA (Tue, Thur, Sat)
QR133 DOH 07:35 – 13:10 PSA (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun)

QR136 PSA 10:35 – 17:35 DOH (Tue, Thur, Sat)
QR134 PSA 16:35 – 23:35 DOH (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun)

Sarajevo

The Qatar Airways Sarajevo service is expected to operate 3x/week and will commence on 7 September 2016 using Airbus A320 aircraft:

QR293 DOH 07:30 – 11:55 SJJ (Wed, Fri, Sun)
QR294 SJJ 12:55 – 18:40 DOH (Wed, Fri, Sun)

Helsinki

Helsinki

Qatar Airways will commence a daily service between Doha and Helsinki from 10 October 2016 and, just like the other European routes above, will employ Airbus A320 aircraft.

QR299 DOH 01:35 – 08:10 HEL (Tue, Wed, Sat)
QR301 DOH 08:15 – 14:50 HEL (Mon, Thur, Fri, Sun)

QR300 HEL 10:55 – 17:15 DOH (Tue, Wed, Sat)
QR302 HEL 17:45 – 00:05+1 day DOH (Mon, Thur, Fri, Sun)

Qatar Airways has also announced plans to commence flights between Doha and Skopje (November 2016) and says that it will resume services to Nice “by summer 2017, with five flights per week with wide-body aircraft”. no schedules have yet been filed for these routes.

Africa

Windhoek (Namibia)

Effective 28 September 2016 Qatar Airways has scheduled a 4x/week service between Doha and Windhoek using its 787-8 Dreamliners.

QR1373 DOH 02:30 – 10:40 WDH (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat)
QR1374 WDH 13:25 – 23:10 DOH (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat)

Seychelles

Anse Cocos, La Digue, Seychelles – Image courtesy of Jean-Marie Hullot via Flickr

From 12 December 2016 Qatar Airways will resume daily service between Doha and the Seychelles using an Airbus A320 aircraft. This service is expected to be seasonal.

QR678 DOH 02:45 – 08:50 SEZ 320 D
QR679 SEZ 19:25 – 23:30 DOH 320 D

Further flights between Doha and Africa are set to include:

• Marrakech (Morocco) – expected  to be 3x/week from July 2016 using Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
• Douala (Cameroon) and Libreville (Gabon) – expected in to be flown 3x/week using a single aircraft from January 2017
• Lusaka (Zambia) – expected “by summer 2017”, to be flown 3x/week

Southeast Asia

Krabi (Thailand)

For the winter season Qatar Airways is adding 4 flights per week between Doha and Krabi, Thailand. Operations will commence on 6 December 2016 and will be flown using the airline’s Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

QR824 DOH 02:20 – 13:00 KBV (Mon, Tue, Fri, Sat)
QR825 KBV 19:55 – 23:20 DOH (Mon, Tue, Fri, Sat)

Qatar Airway also has plans to fly the Doha – Chiang Mai route 3x/week from December but no schedule has yet been filed.

Bottom Line

Clearly different destinations will interest different people out of the list above but the big news is undoubtably the Doha – Auckland route.

I confess to having my doubts about this route and I’m not yet convinced that it will actually ever get off the ground (no pun intended…ok, maybe a little intent). I’m struggling to see the profitability in this route if Qatar Airways is determined to keep it as a non-stop option as I can’t imagine there’s that much demand for this flight. It may work as an add-on to their Sydney or Brisbane service but do that many people really want a daily non-stop from Doha to Auckland?

Yes, I appreciate that oil is cheap right now but that’s not necessarily going to last and it’s not like the Middle Eastern Airlines are above announcing routes for the sake of prestige and then cancelling/postponing them before they ever happen.

Emirates was supposed to start flying from Dubai to Panama City on 31 March and that was announced as the world’s longest route with great fanfare…but that’s now been “postponed” and I highly doubt we’ll ever see it happen – the demand simply issn’t there. And it’s not out of the question that the same fate will befall the Qatar Airways route to Auckland.

I guess what I’m saying is this: This is all very interesting….but I’ll believe the route is happening when QR920 takes off from Doha on 3 December 2016.

Featured image: Francisco Anzola via Flickr