Qatar Airways Says India is Key to Global Strategy

Qatar Airways’ Chief Executive Officer, Akbar Al Baker, has highlighted the importance of the airline’s ongoing expansion and commitment to India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Speaking in Kolkata to celebrate the recent launch of the airline’s flights to the former Indian capital, Al Baker expressed his deep sentiments towards India as a solid trading partner with the State of Qatar.

Qatar is India’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) while exports from India to Qatar centre on food, machinery, chemicals, jewellery and textiles. With strong cultural, social and business links between the two nations, together with the large Indian expatriate community living around the world, the airline boss spoke of how Qatar Airways had developed an established air bridge to connect India with rest of the world.

In its relentless expansion, Al Baker said India played a key role in Qatar Airways’ infrastructure, being a key employer of Indian nationals, who represent around 25 per cent of the airline’s 20,000-strong workforce. Kolkata joined the carrier’s burgeoning Indian route network in July with the launch of daily non-stop services from Doha, becoming its 12th passenger gateway in the country. The airline also operates twice-weekly cargo flights to Kolkata.

Since 2004, when Qatar Airways only operated to four cities in India, the airline has gradually increased capacity across the country, tripling the number of destinations to the current 12, taking overall frequency to 95 passenger flights and 15 freighter services each week. Its Indian network covers daily flights to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, Hyderabad, Kozhikode, Trivandrum, Chennai, Bengaluru (Bangalore), with 11-flights-a-week to Cochin and double daily to the capital, Delhi.

“Today, Qatar Airways enjoys a robust operation in India with 110 flights a week, a four-fold increase from just a few years ago. Having launched flights to Goa, Amritsar, Bengaluru and Kolkata over the past 24 months, our new routes have facilitated growing demand for more capacity to and from India,” explained Akbar Al Baker. “This is a market that is strong and full of confidence. We are eyeing more opportunities here in India and look forward to developing our footprint further to give the travelling public a wider choice of services they deserve, and the cargo community more flights to ease the flow of goods, produce and other shipments to and from India.”