Qatar Airways will resume flights to London Gatwick (LGW) from June 5, offering daily service to the UK’s second busiest airport.
The route from Doha (DOH) will operate using Boeing 787-8 aircraft, featuring 22 seats in business class and 232 seats in economy. Gatwick has been absent from the oneworld alliance member’s network since January 2021.
“Our commitment to the UK market has been unwavering and we operated continuously and reliably throughout the pandemic, so I am pleased we can resume our popular service to London Gatwick,” CEO Akbar Al Baker said.
The airline previously opened bookings for the DOH-LGW route to restart from March 27, but then pushed back the planned resumption date until Oct. 30. However, Qatar Airways’ return to Gatwick in June means it will be operating routes from four UK airports.
It currently offers a 5X-daily service from London Heathrow (LHR); 18X-weekly offering from Manchester (MAN); and four flights per week from Edinburgh (EDI), rising to daily from June 2.
The resumption of the Gatwick service follows the launch of daily Gatwick-Doha flights by joint business partner British Airways (BA) in December 2021.
BA currently serves LGW-DOH daily using 777s and has filed plans for daily LHR-DOH flights during the summer 2022 season. However, the latter route is not available for booking.
Qatar Airways first served Gatwick between 2004 and 2011. It returned in May 2018, flying up to 3X-daily during the peak summer 2019 season using 787-8s and 777-300ERs.
During peak summer this year, analysis of OAG data shows the airline plans to operate about 32,900 weekly seats between Doha and London, compared with about 45,800 during summer 2019.
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