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At the beginning of December, Qatar Airways announced that it would be launching a new service between Doha and Seattle in the Spring of this year as well as entering into a frequent flyer partnership with Alaska Airlines on December 15. Now the airline says that it will launch its Seattle service a lot sooner.
While most other airlines are still operating considerably restricted schedules and, at best, only slowly reopening routes that they closed down back in March and April of last year, Qatar Airways seems to be trying to get back to “normal” as soon as possible. The airline is restarting old routes on a near-weekly basis (it’s already back to operating flights to over 110 destinations around the world) and, a little surprisingly, it has added six new destinations to its network since the pandemic took hold.
Seattle will be Qatar Airways’ seventh new destination since March 2020 and the airline will now launch its service from Doha on 29 January – that’s over 6 weeks ahead of schedule.
The route’s launch date isn’t the only thing that’s changed – the Seattle flights will now be operated by a refurbished Qatar Airways 777 aircraft instead of an Airbus A350-900 which means that the route will now offer 42 Qsuite Business Class seats instead of just 36 (link to Qsuites review).
What hasn’t changed are the flight timings for the new route:
QR719 DOH 08:00 – 12:20 SEA (Mon, Tue, Wed & Fri)
QR720 SEA 17:05 – 17:15+1 day DOH (Mon, Tue, Wed & Fri)
When speaking about bringing forward the launch of his airlines Seattle route, Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker, said the following:
“Qatar Airways is committed to enhancing its connectivity with the U.S. market. Bringing forward the launch of flights to Seattle, our second new U.S. destination since the onset of the pandemic, epitomises this commitment. With flights to Washington State’s largest city our U.S. network will grow to 11 gateways, surpassing the number of destinations we operated in the U.S. pre-COVID19. We look forward to launching our Seattle service and connecting with the hub of our future oneworld partner, Alaska Airlines.”
Following the addition of Seattle to its network, Qatar Airways will be operating flights to the following US cities: Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York (JFK), Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
By the end of March 2021, Qatar Airways says that it hopes to have rebuilt its network back up to 129 destinations including 21 in Africa, 13 in the Americas, 30 in Asia-Pacific, 38 in Europe, 12 in India, and 15 in the Middle East.
Bottom Line
Qatar Airways has brought forwards the launch of its new route to Seattle by over 6 weeks and will now commence flights on 29 January. The airline has also now decided to operate the route with a Boeing 777 aircraft instead of an Airbus A350 which will see it offering 6 more Business Class seats than was originally intended.
The Qatar Airways flight between Doha and Seattle are now available to book on QatarAirways.com
I recently read that Qatar is delaying the restart for their Miami service while they’re moving forward the Seattle flights. Maybe it’s just me but that seems odd.
Yes, considering what a major hub Miami is for American Airlines it would be strange for Qatar Airways to favor its new route to Seattle over Miami (even if it does have a newfound friendship with Alaska Airlines), but the schedules (ExpertFlyer) show Qatar Airways as already operating a twice-weekly service between Doha and Miami (Wed & Sat).
Still no Qatar availability on Alaska using miles
I don’t think that’s coming before Alaska joins oneworld at the end of March.