Business & Finance Club - Doha : Qatar Airways is exploring further growth opportunities in the Far East following the successful launch of flights to Tokyo, its newest Asian destination, airline’s chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker said.
“Qatar Airways is seeing strong demand for air travel from the entire Asian region and is planning to open up a number of new routes,” he told a press conference in the Japanese capital on Tuesday to mark the official launch of flights to Tokyo.
The national carrier’s direct daily services between Doha and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, launched in April, have become one of the company’s top performing routes within its first two months of operation.
Last week, the airline had announced new routes from Doha to Phuket in Thailand and Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi, to begin in October and November 2010 respectively.
Qatar Airways is also stepping up frequency between Doha and Bangkok from double daily flights to three services a day from the end of October.
With Tokyo, Qatar Airways’ Far East and South East Asian route network currently stands at 15 destinations, representing almost 20% of the carrier’s global coverage.
“The Asian market as a whole is one of our biggest in terms of revenue generation, and Japan is very much part of our success story in Asia,” the airline CEO observed.
Al-Baker stated that Qatar is also an important destination with over 1,000 Japanese expatriates living in Doha and over 30 leading Japanese companies engaged in business from across the utility, energy and heavy industry sectors.
The official had announced last week plans to launch four new European routes – Budapest, Bucharest, Nice and Brussels – over a nine-week period from November.
“By early next year, Qatar Airways will be operating to 98 destinations, a figure we expect to easily top 100 during 2011, which indeed is a remarkable feat for an airline which is only 13 years old,” said al-Baker.
Qatar Airways senior vice president (commercial) East Asia and South West Pacific, Marwan Koleilat, asserted that the new service to Tokyo Narita is yet another important milestone for the airline linking up with Doha, an ideal hub from where customers can get onward connections to Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Americas.