Qatar Airways announces new destinations for 2017-18
Qatar Airways has recently made an announcement about the addition of eight new flight destinations for 2017-18, in addition to seven previously announced new cities for a total of 15 new gateways. Destinations joining Qatar Airways’ route network is the capital city of Australia, Canberra, the airline’s fifth destination in Australia; Dublin, Ireland; Las Vegas, the airline’s 11th destination in the US; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Medan, Kualanamu International Airport, the airline’s third destination in Indonesia; and Tabuk and Yanbu, the 9th and 10th destinations in Saudi Arabia.
These newly-announced destinations join the already-announced list of new destinations to start in 2017: Auckland, New Zealand will start 5 February 2017 and will be the world’s longest commercial flight; Sarajevo, Bosnia; Skopje, Macedonia; Libreville, Gabon; Nice, France; Chiang Mai, the airline’s fourth destination in Thailand; and Douala, Cameroon.
Qatar Airways has recently added 12 new destinations in 2016 year-to-date, with two more cities set to join the network in December. The new cities added this year are Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles in the US; Birmingham, UK; Helsinki, Finland; Pisa, the fourth destination in Italy; Yerevan, Armenia; Marrakech, the second destination in Morocco; Ras Al Khaimah, UAE; Windhoek, Namibia; and Sydney and Adelaide in Australia. Qatar Airways will begin service to Krabi, its third destination in Thailand, on 6 December and service returns to the Seychelles on 12 December.
The airline recently welcomed national and international media in Casablanca press briefing to celebrate its business agreement, which turned one with Royal Air Maroc and its expansion to Marrakech earlier this year. The early success of the airline’s second gateway to Morocco was underpinned with an announcement that Qatar Airways will soon be de-linking its current Casablanca-Marrakech route to serve each city directly and will be increasing to a daily frequency to Marrakech in the near future, likely to be served by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Passengers will soon be able to enjoy more options as Qatar Airways increases frequency between Doha, Casablanca and Marrakech. From 15 December 2016, Royal Air Maroc will increase flights between Doha and Casablanca to four times weekly, and from 5 January 2017, Qatar Airways will also add a fourth weekly flight to Marrakech ahead of daily services commencing. From 4 April 2017, Royal Air Maroc will add service to the Casablanca-Doha route, taking the number of weekly return services to five.
