Qatar Airways has today reactivated services to 11 destinations, including three services to the United States of America. The airline is slowly working to rebuild its schedule following a significant service cut as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most airlines are now in the process of rebuilding their services following around three months of significant disruption. This has tied in with most nations seeing a drop in COVID-19 cases following stringent lockdown. Qatar Airways never flew to fewer than 30 destinations during the April height of the pandemic. Now the Qatari flag carrier is rebuilding its schedule to reconnect the world where possible.
Three United States routes resume
Today Qatar Airways is resuming 11 routes. These routes will serve all parts of the world from Asia to Europe and the United States. By relaunching these 11 routes, today has become the single biggest day of expansion for the airline since it began culling routes due to the current pandemic.
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As such, Qatar Airways has creatively dubbed today as “take-off Wednesday.” However, perhaps something with B would be fitting, given the routes chosen. The routes resumed today are:
- Bali Denpasar – Daily
- Beirut – 7x week
- Belgrade – 3x week
- Berlin – 3x week
- Boston – 5x week
- Edinburgh – 3x week
- Larnaca – 3x week
- Los Angeles – 3x week
- Prague – 3x week
- Washington DC – 5x week
- Zagreb – 3x week
More to come
Qatar Airways has consistently told how it wishes to recover as many routes as soon as it can. As such, while today is the biggest day of resumptions, the airline won’t be stopping there. The airline has seven more routes planned by mid-July.
These flights will head to:
- Toronto – July 4th
- Ankara – July 9th
- Zanzibar – July 11th
- Kilimanjaro – July 13th
- Bucharest – July 15th
- Sofia – July 15th
- Venice – July 15th
Last month Qatar Airways declared that it was now the largest airline given its continued large-scale operations throughout the height of the crisis. The airline may well stay there as it will offer 430 weekly flights to 65+ destinations by the middle of the month.
24-month recovery
The length of the airline’s recovery varies depending on who you ask. The Lufthansa Group will tell you 2023. British Airways will tell you that IATA says 2023-24. Meanwhile, Qatar Airways’ CEO, Akbar Al Baker says,
“I wish I had the crystal ball to tell you the right answer.”
However, he does elaborate on the point slightly. In an interview with Sky News’ Ian King on June 17th, Al Baker commented,
“It’s very difficult but I don’t think it will be anywhere closer than the next 24 months to go to at least the semblance of what we had in 2019… What we are trying to do is to take the opportunity, even in downturn, there are always opportunities, and we have been very good at maximizing those opportunities.”
Are you keen to fly with Qatar Airways once more? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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