Thaindian News

Hyderabad, Oct 23 (IANS) Qatar Airways will launch flights to New York this month, offering one-stop service to passengers from nine destinations in India, a senior airline official announced here Thursday.The daily Doha-New York non-stop flight will be launched Oct 26, the airline’s regional manager in India Naveen Chawla said here.

“Operating via Doha, the new flights to New York JFK airport will offer passengers one of the quickest and most convenient journeys to America’s financial capital,” he said.

The daily flights to New York will replace the existing six-flights-a-week to Newark Liberty International Airport via Geneva. The airlines will operate Boeing 777-300 on the new route featuring 335 seats in a two-class configuration of 42 seats in business and 293 in economy.

The airlines also plans to launch flights to Houston, Texas from March 30, 2009. “This will connect America’s energy capital Houston with Doha, which is the energy capital of the Middle East,” he said.

This will be Qatar Airways’ third destination in the US. It already operates daily non-stop flights to Washington.

The airlines currently operate 58 flights a week from nine cities in India with early morning arrivals in Doha and onward connection to the US.

Qatar Airways operates daily services from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Kozhikoda and twice-a-week service from Nagpur. The average load factor from these destinations is over 75 percent, Chawla said.

With 63 aircraft in its fleet, Qatar Airways operates services to 83 destinations worldwide.

The airlines, which handles 90 percent of the air traffic in and out of Qatar, will also operate the new Qatar airport being built at a cost of $500 million on the reclaimed land from the sea.

The first phase of the new airport is expected to be completed 2011 and is designed to handle 24 million passengers per annum. When completed in 2015, the new airport will handle 50 million passengers.