Qatar Airways Boosts Doha – Dubai Frequencies

Qatar Airways is to increase its flights from Doha International Airport to fellow Middle Eastern hub, Dubai International. From August 25, the carrier will introduce an additional three daily flights taking capacity up to eleven services per day. This growth is to meet growing point-to-point travel as well as to provide improved connection opportunities to the carrier’s growing network.

Although Emirates Airline has its own substantial network from Dubai around 476,000 passengers a year fly with Qatar Airways and then catch a connecting service from its Doha hub, approximately 61 per cent of its total traffic on the route. The largest flow are to the United Kingdom (approximately 46,000 O&D passengers), followed by the Philippines, India, France and Thailand.

“Additional capacity on our most popular route demonstrates the level of confidence and commitment we have to a key neighbouring market. It is also indicative that as we develop our international network with the introduction of new routes, we want to provide the travelling public greater travel options between Doha and our feeder markets such as Dubai,” said Akbar Al Baker, Chief Executive Officer, Qatar Airways. “Apart from inducting new destinations into our global network, integral in our strategy is to continue stepping up frequency on existing routes.”

The additional frequencies will offer a more comprehensive mix of morning, afternoon and late night flights between Doha and Dubai and reinforces the importance Qatar Airways places on the route, the highest frequency of any operated by the airline with 77 services each week.

As the table above illustrates, Qatar Airways competes with Emirates Airline and flydubai in this market, carrying an estimated 307,000 O&D passengers in the past year, 35 per cent of the total 882,000 passengers that flew between the two destinations last year. Low-cost carrier flydubai, the most recent entrant, now dominates the market with a 38 per cent share, although its yield is obviously considerably weaker than its full service rivals. flydubai currently offers seven flights per day on the route, while Emirates offers just five flights per day, albeit using widebodied aircraft on every service.