Undeterred by the challenges posed by pandemic, Qatar Airways continues its global expansion.
The national carrier of the State of Qatar, the only airline that did not stop flying during the pandemic, will expand its network to 180 desti-nations globally from the current 130 destinations, said Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker.
Addressing a press conference,HE Akbar Al Baker said that the expansion of Hamad Interna-tional Airport (HIA) will be completed by September next year.
“We will keep on expanding; we are not going to stop. We are now operating to around 130 destinations down from 180 and we will go back to 180 desti-nation mark in not too distant future,” said H E Al Baker, replying to a question by The Peninsula during the press con-ference on the occasion of the 54th Annual General Meeting of the Arab Air Carriers Organ-ization (AACO), held at Sheraton Grand Doha Hotel yesterday. Qatar Airways never ceased operations and worked dili-gently to take people home safely and reliably throughout the pandemic.
Qatar Airways was the only airline that did not stop flying even during the out-break of COVID-19 pandemic. The airline played a crucial role in reunited family members during the pandemic and supply vaccines, medicines and other medical aid to the several countries.
“We are the only airline that never stopped its operations. We increased our frequencies gradually we re-recruited a lot of people,” he added.
“We, at Qatar Airways, are very good at taking right deci-sions and going after the right opportunities and we are one of few airlines that performing very well,” Al Baker said. Giving update about the expansion for HIA, he said that the work is not only on track but is also ahead of schedule.
“When it is coming to the preparation for HIA, we are on target. We are going to increase the capacity of the airport by 20 million passengers to cater for over 58 million passengers. It is a world class facility that we are putting up and as a matter of fact we don’t want to be number two anymore, we want to be always the best airport in the world and this is what exactly we are aiming for and this is what we will deliver,” he said.
HIA, that has played a critical role as a key contributor to the diversification of the nation’s economy, is under-taking an expansion to meet the growing demand for air travel and enhance its position as the preferred gateway for travel. “HIA expansion is supposed to be completed by September of next year. At the moment we are on schedule, as a matter of fact we are one month ahead of the schedule. We measure the performance of our contractors very closely and we make sure that we are not going to slip even considering we were impacted by COVID-19,” he added
