QATAR Airways is
expanding its capacity
to South Africa by
10% with the launch of a
year-round daily service to
Cape Town on October 1,
double-daily services to
Johannesburg and four new
weekly flights to Durban (via
Johannesburg), both starting
December 17.
Speaking at a media
briefing in Cape Town on
June 2, chief commercial
officer, Marwan Koleilat,
said all three routes would
operate with modern B787
Dreamliners, carrying up to
232 passengers in economy
class and 22 in business
class.
The announcement comes
as Qatar Airways celebrates
a decade of service to
South Africa during which
its frequencies grew from
four a week in 2005 to its
current 10 weekly flights
to Johannesburg and three
a week to Cape Town.
Load factors on both the
Johannesburg and Cape
Town routes were achieving
70% averages year-round,
allowing for the expansion,
he said.
Marwan said Qatar
Airways’ flights from South
Africa to Doha’s new Hamad
International Airport were
well timed to connect to the
airline’s key destinations.
The carrier serves 146
destinations on six
continents, with connections
to Asia and Europe being
particularly popular with
South Africans.
The airline last year added
12 new routes and expects
this trend to continue.
New destinations in the
pipeline are a new daily
B787 service to Amsterdam
starting on June 16; five
weekly A320 flights to
Zanzibar (via Kilimanjaro)
from July 1 (making it the
airline’s 20th destination
in Africa); and three new
routes to Pakistan with
A320s in July and August.
Marwan said businessclass
passengers on the
B787 flights could expect
a 203cm fully flat bed,
43cm TV screens and a
‘dine-on-demand’ food and
beverage service. Economyclass
passengers enjoy a
27cm TV screen, an inflight
entertainment system with
up to 2 000 options; and
free WiFi available in both
classes.
He said Qatar Airways was
dramatically expanding its
fleet of 158 aircraft, with
more than 320 aircraft with
a book value of US$70bn
(R877bn) on order. The
first of nine A380s joined
its fleet last year on routes
to London, Paris and
Bangkok and is setting
new benchmarks in aircraft
luxury with eight first-class
suites and 48 businessclass
suites.
As the global launch
customer of the A350, Qatar
already flies the new aircraft
to Frankfurt and Singapore,
with Munich to follow in
October, while it has a total
of 77 of the aircraft type on
order.
