Qatar Airways has outlined route expansion plans for 2012 focused on Australia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, with a raft of new destinations set to join the airline’s rapidly-growing global network.
Highlights include Perth in Western Australia, the Finnish capital Helsinki, Croatia’s capital city of Zagreb, Gassim in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and three East African cities – Zanzibar, Kigali and Mombasa, in Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya, respectively.
Operating from the airline’s hub in Doha, capital of the State of Qatar, all seven new routes will be launched over the next few months.
They will join previously announced Baku and Tbilisi, the capital cities of Azerbaijan and Georgia, respectively, which will become part of Qatar Airways’ family of routes from February 1st 2012.
“We are continuing what we started back in 1997 when Qatar Airways was launched with new routes and new aircraft being introduced at an unprecedented rate to further strengthen what is truly a global network airline,” said Qatar Airways chief executive officer, Akbar Al Baker (pictured above).
“Our mission has been to operate to key business and leisure destinations around the world, but also to underserved markets where others dare not venture into.
“We take bold decisions to serve certain markets because we believe it makes strong business sense.”
Qatar Airways was recognised as the Middle East’s Leading Airline Business Class by the World Travel Awards earlier this year.
The carrier will defend the title on home soil during the WTA Grand Final in Doha on January 11th.
