Tag: Qatar Airways

British Airways cancels BA 123 & BA 122 London Heathrow – Doha flights from Friday 17 February to Monday 20 February 2017

British Airways has cancelled its daily flight from London Heathrow to Doha (and the return flight from Doha on the following day) for a period of four days from Friday 17 February to Monday 20 February 2017.

The affected flight numbers are BA123 and BA122.

The reason cited for the cancellation is “operational reasons”. It is highly likely that this is connected to planned strike action by “Mixed Fleet” London Heathrow cabin crew on these dates.

BA has a rebooking agreement with Qatar Airways (which is a fellow Oneworld alliance member and a 20% shareholder of BA’s parent company International Airlines Group).

If your flight is cancelled (at the time of writing the flight is not cancelled on all days on ba.com though it has notified the travel trade of the cancellations) you have the option of rebooking on to one of Qatar Airways’ five daily flights from London Heathrow to Doha.
Continue reading “British Airways cancels BA 123 & BA 122 London Heathrow – Doha flights from Friday 17 February to Monday 20 February 2017”

British Airways and Qatar Airways to establish joint-venture on flights between Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia via Doha

British Airways and Qatar Airways have today announced the formation of a joint-venture on the airlines’ respective flights to UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia via their respective hubs in Doha and London Heathrow.

The joint-venture will take effect from 30 October 2016.

The two airlines will codeshare on all their respective flights between the UK and Doha. This will include Qatar Airways operated flights from both London Heathrow and UK regional airports (Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester).

Qatar Airways will codeshare on selected British Airways operated flights from London Heathrow to the UK and mainland Europe.

British Airways will codeshare on selected Qatar Airways routes from Doha to the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

These routes include Colombo, Ho Chi Minh City, Multan, Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Denpasar Bali, Addis Ababa, Entebbe, Dar es Salaam, Basra, Baghdad, Khartoum, Sulaimaniyah, Kilimanjaro, Al Najaf, Dhaka, and Djibouti.

There appear to be some exclusions.

For example, Qatar Airways flights to Australia (which BA serves with its own aircraft and codeshares with Qantas Airways and Cathay Pactific) are not mentioned. Nor are BA flights to North America included, where the growth of Middle Eastern airlines has been politically contentious.

Qatar Airways will not codeshare on British Airways routes from London Heathrow to the UK and mainland Europe which it serves directly from Doha.

Similarly, British Airways will not codeshare on Qatar Airways routes from Doha which it serves directly from London Heathrow.

The two airlines will also seek to co-ordinate schedules and fare pricing.

BA and Qatar have been working more closely in recent years. However, codesharing has been limited to a small number of routes and has not been helped by the fact that, until the end of October, BA flies to Doha via Bahrain and its flights were not well timed for onward connections. BA will fly to Doha non-stop from 30 October 2016.

For BA, this deal enlarges its route network to cover a number of destinations it does not serve from London Heathrow such as routes it has withdrawn from in Pakistan and Africa. Qatar Airways gains access to BA’s distribution network and frequent flyer base in the UK to help it compete more effectively against Etihad Airways and Emirates.

Qatar Airways now owns 20% of BA’s parent company International Airlines Group. Qatar Airways has also announced a codeshare arrangement with fellow IAG member airline Vueling.

More details are available in the IAG press release and codeshare flights are on sale now at ba.com

Qatar Airways opens up London-Doha-Adelaide route from 2 May 2016

Just a couple of weeks after Qatar Airways announced that it is to fly from Doha to Sydney the airline continues its expansion in the Australia market, the with the launch of a daily flight from Doha to Adelaide from Monday 2 May 2016.

This is Qatar Airways’ fourth destination in Australia after (as mentioned above) Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Qatar will fly to Adelaide using its latest Airbus A350 aircraft, operating in a two class (business and economy) configuration.

The aircraft comprises 36 seats in business class in a 1-2-1 configuration, featuring 80″ fully-flat beds and 17″ HD in-flight entertainment screens, and 247 seats in economy, each 18-inches wide in a 3-3-3 configuration, with up to a 32″ pitch. Each individual economy seat features a 10.6″ in-flight entertainment screen. Wi-Fi is also available in all classes.

Flight QR 914 Depart Doha 20:55 – Arrive Adelaide 16:20
Flight QR 915 Depart Adelaide 21:30 – Arrive Doha 04:50

As Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld alliance, members of other Oneworld alliance frequent flyer programmes will be able to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles on this route.

Qatar Airways acquires a 9.99% stake in British Airways parent International Airlines Group

Interesting news breaking this morning, and proof that aviation is never dull.

International Airlines Group has confirmed in announcement to the stock exchange that Qatar Airways has acquired a 9.99% stake in International Airlines Group.

The news has been welcomed enthusiastically by IAG CEO Willie Walsh, citing the fact that Qatar Airways has recently joined the Oneworld alliance and British Airways has recently started co-operating with BA on areas such as codesharing on Qatar routes from Doha to Asia.

Willie Walsh also cites the opportunity for further commercial co-operation between Qatar Airways and IAG mber airlines.

There is certainly scope for greater collaboration. For example, BA still serves Doha via a stop in Bahrain and the two airlines could explore a revenue sharing joint-venture on routes to and beyond Doha, as BA has with other Oneworld alliance partners such as American Airlines and Japan Airlines.

At the moment there are no changes to the board structure of IAG. Should Qatar Airways wish to increase its stake in IAG, under EU ownership rules, it would be capped at 49%.

Qatar Airways is not the first Middle Eastern airline to invest in European aviation as Etihad Airways has taken equity stakes in a portfolio of airlines such as Air Berlin, Aer Lingus, Alitalia and Air Serbia. Etihad also has a codeshare relationship with Air France KLM. Emirates has so far eschewed taking equity stakes in other airlines.

Finally, it is also noteworthy that Qatar Airways has invested in IAG at a time when it’s share price is at an all time high, above 550p. IAG’s share price has previously hit lows of around 110p.

Qatar Airways to launch a daily all business class London Heathrow – Doha flight from 15 May 2014

We have to admit to being a little surprised by Qatar Airways’ plans to launch an all business class flight from London Heathrow to Doha, from 15 May 2014. This will complement the airline’s five daily services between the two cities.

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Qatar Airways to join the Oneworld Alliance on 30 October 2013

Qatar Airways is to join the Oneworld alliance on Wednesday 30 October 2013, just over one year after announcing its original intention to join the alliance.

This means that from this date, members of fellow Oneworld alliance members frequent flyer programmes will be entitled to reciprocal frequent flyer benefits (such as mileage earning and airport lounge access) when flying on Qatar Airways.

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British Airways upbeat on performance of London-Sydney route whilst Qantas is yet to show impact of Emirates partnership

Qantas published its annual results for the year ended 30 June 2013 last week. The airline posted a modest net profit of AUD$6 million after tax, which was a significant improvement over last year’s loss of AUD$206 million. This was primarily due a reduction in losses at Qantas’ International division, which prompted a significant reduction in capacity to Europe and the jettisoning of Qantas’ partnership with BA in favour of Emirates, by almost half to AUD$246 million.

Whilst the partnership between Emirates and Qantas is still very much in its infancy, it is curious that Qantas seems to have declined to give any clear revenue guidance on the partnership. In its results it gave only vague operational measures such as “2 times increase in codeshare bookings on EK network” and “3 times increase in EK bookings on Qantas Domestic network” compared to the partnership with British Airways and others. It is hard to draw any conclusions from such claims without seeing the detail behind the headlines.

Meanwhile, British Airways has remained upbeat on the performance of its last remaining Australian route, London-Singapore-Sydney.

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Members of Qatar Airways “Privilege Club” can earn frequent flyer miles on British Airways from Monday 2 September

Qatar Airways has today announced that members of its frequent flyer “Privilege Club” can earn frequent flyer miles when flying on British Airways from Monday 2 September.

Member of the Privilege Club will also be able to redeem their frequent flyer miles on British Airways flights from 1 October 2013.

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