Qatar Airways’ Brisbane service soaring

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July 02, 2020
Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways Brisbane service is soaring according to Thierry Antinori, the airline’s Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer.

“Our Brisbane service has been hugely successful since we began operations on 29 March. It was at the request of the EU Delegation in Australia to repatriate their citizens that we started flying to and from Brisbane. We successfully repatriated thousands of travellers on these temporary flights, leading to the resumption of our current three-weekly services,” said Mr Antinori.

The airline expects the service extended further.

“We’re still experiencing solid demand for the Brisbane service, particularly on the outbound flights, with many travellers still needing to get home from Australia. It’s this demand that has now seen the service being extended into October,” said Mr Antinori.

“Qatar Airways has received numerous appreciation notes from governments and individual passengers for these efforts flying to and from Brisbane, so we hope to continue operations and keep taking people home for as long as we are able to.

“We are also perceived locally as the airline the community rely on for the future, as we have been there in bad times whereas other airlines from our region left passengers stranded, proving they are only there in the good times,” said Mr Antinori.

He adds that the majority of the “traffic both inbound and outbound is from Europe, with the top destination for both directions being London Heathrow, along with strong demand to and from France. Outbound we also have demand for Munich, while inbound we are seeing many passengers from Dublin.”

And Brisbane travellers are taking to the airline’s business class Qsuite and its Airbus A350-1000.

“We were thrilled to be the first airline to fly the revolutionary A350-1000 into Brisbane when we started our three-weekly flights. This also meant bringing our award-winning Qsuite to Brisbane passengers for the first time. The A350 aircraft offers the most cabin comfort for customers and less emissions, being a lot more environmentally friendly than the A380,” said Mr Antinori.

“The feedback from passengers has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly given the enhanced privacy Qsuite provides, including sliding privacy partitions and fully closing doors. Passengers can also opt to use the ‘Do Not Disturb (DND)’ indicator in their private suite if they wish to limit their interactions with the cabin crew.  The Qsuite is the best and most private business class cabin in the airline industry worldwide.”

 

Qatar airways

Underpinning many of Qatar Airways’ flights is belly cargo and the airline is carrying substantial cargo business on all the 21 passenger flights to and from Australia, including Brisbane services.

“Qatar Airways Cargo also joined the Australian Government’s Freight Assistance Mechanism to support Australian agriculture exporters in April, offering a combined air freight capacity of more than 850 tonnes each way. This includes two Boeing 777 freighters and 11 Boeing 777 freight-only passenger aircraft in addition to the belly-hold on passenger flights,” said Mr Antinori.