Despite all of the airlines I’ve mentioned reducing or massively cutting their services around the world thanks to COVID-19, there’s one carrier that’s doing the opposite. Qatar Airways recently announced they would be placing larger aircraft on pre-existing routes in Australia as well as also introducing a new service for the meantime.
The airline isn’t doing this to take advantage of their competitors having lower loads, but instead will be operating repatriation flights transporting Australians home via Europe and Europeans that are stuck in Australia as well as Qatari citizens. As mentioned above, the airline will be utilising its A380 for the Perth sector and to accompany that, Qatar has and will be servicing Brisbane Airport until the start of May. This has been in effect from March 29th.
Qatar Airways 777-300/ER (Image – http://www.theaviationstudio.com/)
Qatar Airways will be servicing Brisbane with their Boeing 777-300ER until May 1st.
After gaining the Australian Government’s permission to operate flights into Australia, Qatar has begun flights to Brisbane on a mission to rescue passengers stranded abroad. Qatar has committed to operating 48,000 seats to Australia over a months period. These flights include service to Brisbane, which have been previously blocked by the Government refusing to extend and increase their existing bilateral agreement (21 weekly services to major cities).
Qatar’s chief executive officer, Akbar Al Baker has long been very vocal in the past when asked about another Australia service. It seems as though he’s not impressed with what is available to him considering when you look at how many frequencies the opposition carriers are given per day – it’s quite a substantial number.
Here are the following times for the flights:
QR913 departs Brisbane at 11:20 am and arrives into Doha at 2:20 am the following day
QR912 departs Doha at 5:00 pm and arrives into Brisbane at 7:20 am the following day.
(These flights will operate every day of the week until May 1st)
Qatar Airways 777-300/ER (Image – http://www.theaviationstudio.com/)
The airline has publicly stated that they’re in high need of money and assistance from the Qatari government. Despite their financial situation, these flights are going ahead no matter what for the sole purpose of repatriation.
Even though Qatar is only going to be temporary, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try and enter the Queensland market as soon as things are back to normal. It would be a fantastic addition to the already extensive route network the Doha based carrier has.