Lufthansa Goes Direct to Doha

German national carrier Lufthansa is to introduce a direct flight between Frankfurt and Doha from October 30, eliminating an existing stopover in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh for passengers travelling on the route. The non-stop link will bring down the travel time between the two cities from 7 hours 30 minutes to five hours 45 minutes on the outbound leg and from eight hours 25 minutes to six hours fifty minutes on the return service.

Lufthansa confirms that it will offer six flights per week between Frankfurt and Doha, a market of an estimated 59,000 O&D passengers in the past year. The traffic on the route is currently dominated by Qatar Airways (90 per cent), which offers a twice daily service, although Lufthansa does already codeshare on this flight. The German carrier carried just over 2,500 O&D passengers between the two cities, just 4 per cent of the total traffic.

"Qatar is one of the most dynamic growth markets in the Gulf region and it has long been on our wish list to bring a non-stop Lufthansa service to the Doha-Frankfurt route," said Peter Pollak, General Manager UAE and Director Gulf, Afghanistan & Iraq, Lufthansa. "We are pleased to offer the superior travel comfort of a six weekly non-stop flight to our customers soon," he added, expressing his joy over the recent announcement.

According to the airline’s revised schedule, the flight will operated from Frankfurt during daylight hours and will return overnight. It is scheduled to be operated by either an Airbus A330 or A340 depending upon passenger demand. These are configured in a three class arrangement with a First, Business and Economy cabin.