Qatar Airways to start all-first class service on medium-haul routes
10 Mar 2008
Qatar Airways has said it will start all-premium flights out of Doha on medium-haul routes and that aircraft configured with an all-first class cabin should be operating by year-end. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker was speaking to media at the ITB tourism fair in Berlin last week.
According to Al Baker the airline was looking for a 100-seat aircraft for the service.
He also said that the airline would be looking at regional aircraft to serve at least 10 destinations in the Middle East and that it might order up to 20 such aircraft.
Al Baker said that Qatar Airways would be profitable by 2011 and would go in for an IPO by 2014 after three years in the black.
By the end of the current financial year, which ends on March 31, the carrier will have transported around 10 million passengers. The airline is looking at transporting 11.5 million passengers in the coming fiscal.