By Hemal Gosai
Qatar Airways Resumes Nonstop Service to Auckland
Qatar Airways will be resuming daily nonstop service to Auckland from Doha starting in September 2023. The route was first introduced in 2017, when at the time it was the world’s longest flight. It unfortunately was a victim of the pandemic and the flight was cut since New Zealand had closed its borders for a considerable amount of time.
The route will be operated by an Airbus A350-1000 that features 46 business class and 281 economy suites. This aircraft choice will guarantee all business class passengers QSuites, Qatar Airway’s current generation business class product. All A350 aircraft have QSuites, while most of Qatar Airways’ long haul fleet features QSuites. The exception being Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 aircraft.
Flights are scheduled to optimize connections from Europe, specifically the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The flight schedule is as follows:
Doha to Auckland: QR920 departs at 1:50AM and arrives a day later at 2:45AM
Auckland to Doha: QR921 departs at 3:00PM and arrives at 11:15PM
Currently Qatar Airways does fly to Auckland but it’s not nonstop service. The airline first flies to Adelaide, Australia then continues onward to Auckland. The benefit of nonstop service will also be extended to passengers who have already been booked these flights to Auckland via Adelaide since passengers previously booked on this route will be re-accommodated on the nonstop flight.
The resumption of nonstop services comes as the airline seeks to rebuild and expand its route network as the world adapts to living with COVID-19. While the airline did maintain a significant portion of its route network through the pandemic, some routes were cut. As travel returned, an additional challenge cropped up, the lack of aircraft. Qatar Airways faced challenges with Airbus over quality issues of certain A350 aircraft. This led to several aircraft being grounded resulting in limited capacity.
Most of these challenges have been resolved with Airbus and it’s expected to see the airline continue to grow.
Recently the airline has had Boeing 737 MAX aircraft enter service as part of a strategy to grow flights within the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The airline has also expanded outside of the Gulf Cooperation Council with the resumption of flights to Morocco and Birmingham in the UK. The flights Casablanca and Marrakesh in Morocco will operate four time a week to and from Doha. The flights will operate through the summer season with Marrakesh as a seasonal tag that will operate until early September. The flight to Birmingham will also operate during the summer schedule daily.
All three destinations will be served using Boeing 787-8 aircraft with 22 seats in business class and 232 seats in economy.
Hemal took his first flight at four years old and has been an avgeek since then. When he isn’t working as an analyst he’s frequently found outside watching planes fly overhead or flying in them. His favorite plane is the 747-8i which Lufthansa thankfully flies to EWR allowing for some great spotting. He firmly believes that the best way to fly between JFK and BOS is via DFW and is always willing to go for that extra elite qualifying mile. Hemal’s opinions are his own and do not reflect those of his employer.