Qatar Airways to fly 7-day week to Doha

Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Qatar Airways will increase flights on its Jakarta-Doha service, which stops over in Kuala Lumpur, to seven days a week starting on Monday, a company spokesman says.

The airline currently serves the route five days a week.

Qatar Airways area manager Aminuddin A. Hamid said on Wednesday that the increased flight service was due to the huge market potential in the region.

"The seven-days-a-week service will automatically offer more capacity and connectivity beyond Doha," said Hamid.

All flights will be served by a 312-seat Airbus 300-600 aircraft, with 18 business- and 294 economy class seats.

Qatar Airways data shows that the Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur-Doha route carried 22,000 passengers last year.

"We expect the number to surge to 36,000 this year," Hamid said.

He added that the airline had raised US$6.5 million in revenue last year from the route, which was 15 percent over the target. This year, the airline expects revenue to reach US$10 million, he said.

Qatar Airways, which first entered Indonesian air space in 2001, previously operated the service only three days a week. A year later, its service was increased to five days a week due to a 25 percent increase in market growth.

In an effort to increase services, the airline and Garuda Indonesia last year signed an agreement under which Qatar Airways was to act as operator and Garuda its marketing partner, with a 30-seat allotment given to Garuda on every flight connecting Jakarta with Doha.

By the end of this year, Qatar Airways plans to increase services to cover 60 major cities, including Zurich, Istanbul and Luxor. To realize the plan, the carrier signed a $5.1 billion deal with Airbus last year to purchase 34 new aircraft over the next five years, which will expand its fleet to 52 aircraft by 2008. This year, the airline will receive 13 new aircraft.