Qatar Airways: aircraft and routesQatar Airways: aircraft and routes

History and development

Qatar Airways has developed an international network since the late 1990s and joined the oneworld alliance in 2013. Partnerships complement the company's own flights when building complex routes with transfers.

Qatar Airways is the national carrier of Qatar. In 2014, the company moved all operations to the new Hamad International Airport in Doha, which became the center of its transfer network.

Qatar Airways was established in 1993 and began operations in 1994; one of the first destinations was Amman. At the end of the decade, the company expanded the fleet, gradually transforming from a small regional carrier into an international airline.

In the early years, Qatar Airways had a small fleet and flew primarily in the Middle East and Asia. In the late 1990s, new European destinations appeared, and Airbus A320 purchases helped to upgrade short and medium lines. Later, the company moved to a model of a large transfer hub, which required long-range wide-body aircraft.

The first years of Qatar Airways were associated with the search for Qatar’s own place in international aviation. The small network was gradually expanded through aircraft purchases and the opening of destinations outside the Middle East. By 2010, the company was already building routes on a global scale, and joining oneworld in 2013 strengthened ties with other carriers.

Milestones

• 1993: Qatar established Qatar Airways as a national carrier.
• 1994: Commercial flights began; Amman was one of the first points of the new network.
• 2013: The company joined the oneworld alliance.
• 2014: All flights transferred to the new Hamad International Airport in Doha.
• 2018: Qatar Airways is the first to receive a passenger Airbus A350-1000.

Route networks

The hub at Hamad Airport allows you to collect passenger flows from different regions in Doha and send them further. For such a model, both narrow-body aircraft and wide-body airliners are used in long-distance directions.

The network covers destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. For the passenger, her logic is simple: arriving in Doha from one region, connecting at Hamad airport and continuing on the next flight.

The move to Hamad Airport in 2014 was a major milestone for the transfer model. Passenger flows from Europe, Asia and other regions received a common modern hub instead of the former Doha airport.

The transfer to Hamad Airport allowed international transfers to be concentrated in one more spacious hub. The geography of the routes is wide, but for each passenger the trip consists of specific two or more flights. Therefore, when planning, not only the cities on the map are important, but also the docking time, the terminal, as well as the performing carrier at each site.

Aircraft and features

The airline was the starting customer of the Airbus A350 family and was the first to receive a passenger A350-1000. Its network combines regional flights and long-haul flights through Doha.

On separate long-haul aircraft, the company offers a proprietary business class Qsuite. The layout of the cabin depends on the board and flight, so this feature cannot be automatically expected in every direction of Qatar Airways.

In the late 1990s, Qatar Airways added to the Airbus A320 fleet for shorter lines. Large long-haul aircraft later appeared, and the A350 family became an important part of fleet renewal on intercontinental routes.

Qatar Airways has a fleet of aircraft of different capacity: A320 for shorter sections and A350, Boeing 777 and 787 for long-distance destinations. The company was the first to receive a passenger A350-1000; part of the long-haul product is known as Qsuite. However, a specific cabin depends on the board, so one airline name does not guarantee the same layout on all flights.

Qatar Airways uses different classes of service and layout on aircraft of the same family. Qsuite is a well-known business-class product, but it is not installed on every board. The first delivery of the A350-1000 in 2018 was an important technological milestone: this type is designed for long-haul lines and complements the already diverse Airbus and Boeing fleet.