The market from Europe to Puerto Rico is currently massively underserved, with a significant percentage of indirect passengers already flying between the two markets. In the past 12 months this market size was an estimated 150,000 passengers, with 87 per cent having to travel indirect due to the current limited direct offering across the Atlantic.
This will mark the return of direct flights into Asia for the Scandinavian flag carrier from Sweden’s capital city. In the past ten years it has previously offered links from Stockholm to both Beijing and Bangkok, the latter on a seasonal winter basis, but these were both suspended from spring 2009.
The frequency growth will see Qatar Airways boost capacity to Barcelona by 32.1 per cent in 2015, while total capacity into Spain will increase 30.4 per cent to almost 360,000 seats in each direction. According to MIDT data, the airline carried an estimated 458,000 passengers on its flights to and from Spain last year.