Qatar Airways adds flights to seven new destinations and restarts 11 routes including RAK

The Gulf airline will resume flights to Ras Al Khaimah in November for the first time since 2017

Several existing destinations on the airline's network will be boosted as capacity increases to 35 cities. AFP

Qatar Airways is undergoing a major expansion and will add 655 weekly flights to its summer schedule.

The network update, announced at the travel trade show ITB Berlin on Tuesday, will add flights to seven new destinations. These include services to Lyon and Toulouse in France, Trabzon in Turkey, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Juba in South Sudan, Medan in Indonesia and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Qatar Airways, named Airline of the Year at the 2022 World Airline Awards by Skytrax, is also resuming flights to 11 destinations.

Among these are direct flights from Doha to Ras Al Khaimah, which the airline has not operated to since 2017. The emirate will be Qatar Airways' fourth destination in the UAE after Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, with flights scheduled to resume on November 1.

Other route resumptions include Beijing, Birmingham, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Davao City, Marrakesh, Nice, Osaka, Phnom Penh and Tokyo Haneda.

“Qatar will continue to be a global hub of connectivity and an ideal destination for tourism, long after the great success of the historic Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022,” said Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, at a press conference in Germany.

Several existing destinations on the airline's network will be boosted as capacity increases to 35 cities as part of its plans to establish the destination as a “global hub of connectivity”.

Notable capacity changes include doubling flight frequency to Athens, Larnaca and Khartoum from seven to 14 weekly flights, increasing services to Oslo, Phuket, Madrid, Manila and more cities, and additional flights to the UK.

Qatar Airways will operate 10 weekly flights to London Gatwick and up capacity to Heathrow from 42 to 45 weekly flights. Services to Edinburgh and Dublin will also get a boost with 14 flights per week to the Irish and Scottish capitals.

By March next year, the airline plans to fly to 174 destinations around the world.