Wow, time has flown! – it’s already been 6 weeks since Qatar Airways commenced their Auckland service which is currently the longest flight in the world, this will be beaten by Singapore Airlines in 2018.

I thought it would be interesting to see how the flight is performing since starting in February.

Qatar touching down in Auckland

The flight has had mixed loads for the past few weeks. I’ve continued to notice that the flights Ex Doha are going out much lighter than Ex Auckland. This example is of a random date this week.

And this is the flight Ex Auckland, much better loads than out of Doha.

Now it’s still too early to say if the route will continue to be daily but, I could see Qatar making it a few times weekly like they did with their Adelaide services.

It may take a while till we see it fill up more but who knows. Akbar Al Baker did mention the load factor in and out of the Pacific was around 85% last year which is pretty great, let’s hope that continues.

This however, is great for people wanting to redeem miles for these flights.

Again, Ex Auckland is a much busier and finding Business availability is tricky, Economy, on the other hand is available almost all days.

Finding Business out of Doha is much easier and I was able to find at least 4 seats available on a number of dates.

How to find Qatar Business Class Availability?

The best way to find Qatar availability in any class is using the British Airways website. Click on the ‘Executive Club’ tab, then to ‘Spending Miles’, and lastly ‘Book a reward flight’. On this page, you enter the flight details and start searching for space.

What points should I use?

There are a number of programs you can use to book these flights, I’ll list 2 below:

• American Airlines AAdvantage – 42,000 one-way in Economy –  80,000 in Business.
• British Airways Executive Club – 50,000 one-way in Economy – 150,000 in Business
• Qantas Frequent Flyer – 65,000 one-way in Economy – 121,000 in Business

Qatar also often have fantastic sale fares if you’re interested in paying for tickets. Often when the airline announces a new route is when they run sales.