Qatar Airways’ aggressive growth strategy will continue this year with three new routes announced by chief executive Akbar Al Baker at Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
In early November, flights to Entebbe in Uganda will launch followed later in the same month by Baku in Azerbaijan and Tblisi in Georgia.
These are on top of the likes of Medina in Saudi Arabia which will have four two-class flights a week from July 14 and a capacity increase to the country’s two largest cities Riyadh and Jeddah to two daily flights from June 2.
Also from June 1, Dammam’s capacity will increase from 21 flights to 28 flights a week.
The airline recently reached the 100 route milestone, according to Al Baker, and he remains bullish about expansion plans with a 120 destination target by 2013.
He added: “We were running 72% load factor during the last year and carried 16 million passengers. On average we take delivery of a new plane every 18 days.”
In the past 12 months, the airline has launched routes in cities including Copenhagen, Tokyo, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Phuket, Nice and Brussels.
And in the next few months Venice, Shiraz, Montreal, Kolkata, Oslo and Sofia will also be launched.
Al Baker said he expects the price of oil to continue rising as long as there are conflicts and a “perceived shortage of supply”.
He added: “When we charge a surcharge it doesn’t cover the entire cost of the increase in the price of oil – it is a comparatively small amount.”
Al Baker also said the airline was considering taking a 33% stake in airline Cargolux and added: “We will look at other airlines if they are healthy, well established and efficient.”