Qatar Airways unveils dates for Amritsar and Goa routes

Qatar Airways announced it was bringing forward the launch dates of its two new Indian routes - Goa and Amritsar - in time for the busy winter holiday season.

Scheduled flights to the northern Indian city of Amritsar will be launched on October 11 ahead of Diwali, the religious festival of lights.

Two weeks later, beginning October 25, the idyllic beach destination of Goa will be added to Qatar Airways' growing route network in India in preparation for the inbound winter holiday traffic.

Qatar Airways said it will be the first full-service scheduled international airline flying to Goa - a popular retreat, particularly among European holidaymakers.

Both routes will be operated four-times-per-week non-stop from the airline's hub in Doha. The routes will be operated by two-class Airbus A320s and are configured with 12 seats in Business and 132 seats in Economy.

Qatar Airways currently operates 56 flights a week between Doha and India - daily non-stop services to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode. The addition of Amritsar and Goa will take Qatar Airways' Indian capacity up to 64 flights a week and offer more choices to the travelling public in Kuwait to fly to.

In March, Qatar Airways unveiled plans to widen its Indian route network by operating the two new routes at the end of 2009.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said: “When we made the route expansion announcement during the ITB Berlin travel show in March, news spread very quickly with a lot of excitement in the market about these highly undeserved destinations by international airlines.

“We have since been inundated with calls from the public seeking more information about the launch dates. We are now pleased to confirm October 11 and 25 as the launch times giving Qatar Airways significantly more capacity to India.

“India is by far Qatar Airways' largest single market in terms of destinations served, and we are extremely pleased to be expanding our wings further into the country,” he added.