Multiple changes made to Qatar Airways & Emirates schedules/aircraft for winter season

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Qatar Airways and, to a much lesser extent, Emirates have both made updates to their winter 2023/24 schedules. These updates include flights being added and removed and changes to the aircraft that are set to operate select routes, so if you have a booking with either carrier, this would be a good time to check your bookings and your seat selections.

Airline schedules and the aircraft that are assigned to operate specific routes change on a weekly basis so in a way, this isn’t really news. Having said that, a significant number of people who read TFM fly with Qatar Airways and/or Emirates, so it seems prudent to highlight the routes on which changes are being made.

Note: I’m not going to list every change made on every route, but I’ll list out the routes on which flights have been removed and the routes on which an aircraft change has been posted. Hopefully, that should be enough information to let you know if you may be affected.

Qatar Airways routes affected

Routes with flights eliminated

Doha – Casablanca
Doha – Cebu
Doha – Larnaca
Doha – Luanda
Doha – Salalah

Routes with aircraft changes

Doha – Amsterdam
Doha – Bangkok
Doha – Chennai
Doha – Denpasar
Doha – Edinburgh
Doha – Hanoi
Doha – Jakarta
Doha – Johannesburg
Doha – London Heathrow (possibly)
Doha – Nairobi
Doha – Prague
Doha – Rome
Doha – Tokyo (HND)
Doha – Tokyo (NRT)

[HT: Aeroroutes for this information]

Emirates routes affected

Routes with flights eliminated

Dubai – Amsterdam (in November)
Dubai – Geneva
Dubai – Mahe Island

Routes with aircraft changes

Dubai – Basra
Dubai – Madinah
Dubai – Mahe Island

[HT: Aeroroutes for this information]

Quick thoughts

Anyone whose flight has been affected by a flight cancellation will probably have been alerted by their airline by now, so I don’t expect many people to find out that they need to get rebooked from this article… but it never hurts to point out the flight cancellations just in case.

When it comes to aircraft changes, however, neither airline is great at keeping passengers informed that their seat selection has changed, so if you’re flying with Qatar or Emirates in the next few months, it’s definitely worth checking to see if your seat allocations are as you’d expect them to be.

Personally, I was prompted to write this article when I (just) discovered that Qatar Airways has swapped an A380 for a 787-9 on a route that I’ll be flying, and that seat 17A (the seat I originally chose) was no longer a valid selection for the new Business Class cabin.

Qatar Airways didn’t advise me of the aircraft change and didn’t even assign me a new seat, I just discovered that I didn’t have a valid seat selected when I checked my booking.

Lastly, it’s also worth noting that these are just the latest changes to the Qatar Airways & Emirates flight schedules, so as there may well have been other changes made in the past few weeks and months, anyone who has a flight booking that they haven’t reviewed in some time should check that all is in order even if they don’t see their route listed above.

Bottom line

Over the past few days, both Qatar Airways and Emirates have updated their schedules (flights, aircraft and timings have all been affected on select routes) so if you’re booked to fly with either airline this winter season, now would be a good time to review your booking to make sure that all is as it should be.