Qatar Airways Hits 100 Weekly Flights to India as Nagpur Link Returns

The Indian market has been a key part of the Qatar Airways hub model supporting strong ethnic point-to –point demand and providing feed for onward flights from Doha across the Middle East, Africa and across to Europe and the Americas. The resumption of flights to Nagpur later this year will bring its total weekly passenger flights from 95 to 102 across 13 cities in India.

The oneworld alliance member will reinstate its flights to Nagpur from December 1, 2015 with a daily Airbus A320 rotation. The flight will operate each evening from Hamad International Airport in Doha and arrive at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport in Nagpur in the early hours of the morning, before returning to the Qatar capital to connect to its early morning wave.

Nagpur is the second capital and the third largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune and is the 9th largest urban agglomeration in India and the largest city in Vidarbha Region. Having been identified as one of the flagship smart cities by the government of India, Nagpur is set to emerge as an important trade and business hub.

A new economic zone and airport are being planned in the city – these developments are likely to increase the attractiveness of Nagpur and a reason behind Qatar Airways’ return to the market – it previously served this market from September 2007 to May 2009 on a twice weekly basis but suspended the route due to the poor performance of the route.

Qatar Airways will be only the second foreign international airline to serve the market alongside Air Arabia which introduced low-cost flights from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November 2005.

“Reinstating the Doha-Nagpur route is part of Qatar Airways’ strategy to service increasing demand by providing the best possible flying experience to our customers in India,” said His Excellency Akbar Al Baker, group chief executive, Qatar Airways, who hinted that further growth in India is on the cards.

“Today, India has the largest number of destinations served by our carrier across any market and we will continue to look for more destinations and additional flights to expand our reach in the Indian subcontinent,” he added.

Our analysis of OAG Schedules Analyser data highlights the growth of Qatar Airways in the Indian market over the past ten years. In the period between 2005 and 2014, Qatar Airways boosted its capacity into india by an average annual rate of 33 per cent with arrival capacity in India growing above the one million annual seats in 2013 and 2014. Based on published schedules for the remainder of this year capacity will grow by around 2.6 per cent in 2015.