Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker has described the airline’s new route launch to Madina as a “further strengthening of its presence in Saudi Arabia”.
“We are delighted to add Madina to our global route network, further strengthening our presence in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and clearly proving how important this dynamic market is for Qatar Airways,” he said.
“We will now be able to fulfil the long-felt need of our customers, especially as we welcome the holy month of Ramadan in a few weeks from now.”
Al-Baker said that as the route to Madina developed, Qatar Airways would also look to add frequency and capacity to improve connectivity even further.
The Doha-Madina route is operated with an Airbus A320 in a two-class configuration of 12 seats in first class and 132 in economy.
The launch of the four-flights-a-week to Madina was the airline’s fourth destination in the kingdom.
The new route, non-stop from Doha, takes Qatar Airway’s capacity to Saudi Arabia up to 60 services a week, representing a significant increase in frequency to the country from 35 flights a few weeks ago.
The carrier recently boosted capacity to Saudi Arabia with 14 weekly flights to the capital Riyadh, 14 services-a-week to the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and 28 weekly flights to the commercial hub of Dammam.
Passengers flying to Madina can travel in comfort from more than 100 destinations served by Qatar Airways across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America, via the airline’s Doha hub with the shortest possible connecting time.
Madina is the ninth new route launched by Qatar Airways so far this year. Others being the introduction of services from Doha to Bucharest, Budapest, Brussels, Stuttgart, Aleppo, Shiraz, Venice and Montreal. Over the next few months, the airline introduces services to Kolkata, Sofia, Oslo, Entebbe, Baku and Tbilisi.
Flights to Kolkata start from July 27. It will be the 12th destination served by the airline across India.
By 2013, it plans to serve over 120 key business and leisure destinations worldwide with a fleet of more than 120 aircraft.
Today, the airline’s fleet stands at 98 aircraft, flying to over 100 destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North and South America.
Follow us on our social media channels:
@ILQlive
@ILQlive
@ILoveQtr
ILoveQatar
