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Earlier today Qatar Airways revealed the Economy Class cabin it will launch on its new Airbus A321Neo aircraft as well the updates passengers can expect to its Economy Class meals, service and amenities….but that’s not all that the airline revealed.
Qatar Airways New Routes For 2019
Akbar Al-Baker, the outspoken CEO of Qatar Airways used a press conference at the ITB Berlin trade fair to confirm seven new routes that Qatar Airways will be launching this year as well as to hint at further route expansion to come.
I’m being very careful not to call this news ‘route announcements’ as at least a couple of these destinations have been announced before but, this time around, we actually have launch dates and frequency information from Qatar Airways.
Here’s are the destinations to which Qatar Airways will launch service in 2019:
- Izmir (Turkey) from 23 May 2019 – 3 flights/week increasing to daily service
- Rabat (Morocco) from 29 May 2019 – 3 flights/week increasing to daily service
- Malta from 4 June 2019 – daily service
- Davao (Philippines) from 18 June 2019 – 1 flight/week increasing to 3 flights/week
- Lisbon (Portugal) from 24 June 2019 – daily service
- Mogadishu (Somalia) from 1 July 2019 – 3 flights/week
- Langkawi (Malaysia) from 15 Oct 3 flights/week
Al Baker confirmed that the increased frequencies (as noted above) are dependent on the speed at which the airline takes delivery of new aircraft so any increases may not happen for a while if issues arise in the supply chain.
The Qatar Airways CEO also indicated that his airline has seven more routes “up [their] sleeve” which he wasn’t prepared to announce or discuss today but he did confirm that 2 more cities in Portugal are expected to get service from Doha.
Bottom Line
Often it’s best to treat any route information from the Qatar Airways CEO with a reasonable amount of scepticism as there are quite a few routes he’s said Qatar Airways will operate that have yet to appear in the schedules…but this time I think we’re safe to take him at his word.
This time around, although not all routes are appearing the in the schedules yet, we have dates and frequencies with which to work so it would be a bigger backtrack than normal if these routes didn’t launch.
Overall, the Malt route is interesting (for reasons I’ve discussed before) and I’m particularly please to see Langkawi get a mention because this is a destination I’ve been hoping to visit for a while. The other destinations don’t really fit into my plans right now (I’m in no hurry to visit Mogadishu!) but I’m sure they’ll be useful to someone out there 🙂
Featured Image: Lisbon by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia
