Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker hosted a press conference to officially inaugurate the airline’s new route from Doha to Adelaide and to celebrate the arrival of the first commercial Airbus A350 to land on Australian soil. Adelaide Airport Managing Director, Mr. Mark Young, and South Australia Minister of Tourism, Hon. Leon Bignell, joined His Excellency Mr. Al Baker at the press conference, showing their support for the new route, which will add an estimated AU$41 million to the local economy.
The launch of the new Adelaide route is part of Qatar Airways’ expansion plans in Australia where it launched its new daily flight to Sydney in March this year and where it has been flying daily to and from Melbourne since 2009 and Perth since 2012.
Demand in Australia is so great that at a recent press conference in Sydney, H.E. Mr. Al Baker announced that the aircraft type flying to Sydney would be upgraded from a Boeing 777 with a capacity of 335 passengers to an Airbus A380, with a capacity of 517 passengers, by September this year.
As the global launch customer of the Airbus A350, Qatar Airways has the largest fleet of this aircraft type of any airline in the world and already flies its eight aircraft to Munich, Singapore, the United States and Frankfurt. The Airbus A350 is the ideal aircraft for long-haul travel as its modern design and technology provide the ultimate passenger comfort while reducing fatigue after a long-distance flight.
