Qatar Airways has announced it will begin flights to Hangzhou, China from December 20, 2013. The non-stop service from its Doha base to the capital city of Zhejiang Province will operate to a four times weekly schedule using a 260-seat Airbus A330-200 configured with 24 seats in Business Class and 236 seats in Economy.
This will be only the second scheduled link into Hangzhou for the oneworld global alliance, which accepted Qatar Airways as a member in the past couple of weeks. Currently Dragonair, an affiliate member of the grouping, provides access to the market via Hong Kong.
“This year we celebrate 10 years of flying to China,” said Akbar Al Baker, chief executive officer, Qatar Airways. “The addition of our seventh route in China will provide additional connectivity for business and leisure travellers connecting from Asia, the Middle East and GCC countries.”
Qatar Airways began operations to China in 2003 with the launch non-stop flights to Shanghai, with the airline further expanding its portfolio over the past decade with the addition of Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Chongqing and in the last couple of months, Chengdu.
Hangzhou, is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in China, is known for its rich history and picturesque scenery. The city, one of the top tourist sites in China, is also referred to as ‘Paradise on Earth’, ‘Home of Silk’ and ‘Tea Capital’ and some of its most notable landmarks in the city and surrounding area are the West Lake, Linying Temple, the Xixi National Wetland Park, the water town of Wuzhen and the world’s largest silk museum.
Although Xiaoshan International Airport in Hangzhou is a focus city for Air China, China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines, international connectivity is limited with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operating the only regular direct service outside of Asia: the link to its Amsterdam Schiphol hub has been operational since May 2010. However, Ethiopian Airlines does offer one-stop, direct connectivity into Africa with a link to Addis Ababa, via New Delhi.
In 2012, Xiaoshan International handled 19,115,320 passengers ranking it as the tenth largest airport in China but much of its traffic is currently centred on the domestic market. In fact, an analysis of this month’s flight schedules from Xiaoshan International shows that domestic travel accounts for 87.5 per cent of the capacity. A total of 22 international destinations are currently served from the airport with the territories of Hong Kong, Taipei and Macau the largest international markets by capacity, followed by Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi.
Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 16 years of operations, currently flying a modern fleet of 127 aircraft to 133 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and The Americas. In 2013, Qatar Airways has launched eleven destinations to date – Gassim (Saudi Arabia), Najaf (Iraq), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Chicago (USA), Salalah (Oman), Basra (Iraq), Sulaymaniyah (Iraq), Chengdu (China), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Ta’if (Saudi Arabia) and most recently Clark Manila International Airport (Philippines).
Over the next few weeks and months, the network will grow further with Sharjah and Dubai World Central, both in the UAE (March 1, 2014), Philadelphia, USA (April 2, 2014) and Miami, USA (June 10, 2014) joining the airline’s route map.
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