Qatar Airways to increase flights to M’sia

(From left) Airbus programmes head executive vice-president Didier Evrard, Akbar and Rolls Royce president of civil large engines Eric Schulz at the unveiling ceremony

DOHA: Qatar Airways will be increasing the number of flights to Malaysia to four times daily from three currently later this year.

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said Malaysia was an important market and that he did not expect demand for flights to be impacted by the MAS and AirAsia X tragedies last year.

“As far as we’re concerned, only one of them was an accident, which was AirAsia X (last month),” he told reporters on the sidelines after the Doha-based airline company revealed its first A350 XWB aircraft yesterday. “Regardless, people still need to fly. We will increase the number of flights to four per day to Malaysia later this year,” Akbar said.

He said the number of air accidents in East Asia was still one of the lowest in the world. “If you look at the Far East, there are thousands of planes flying and the rate of accidents there is one of the lowest in the world.”

In light of the MH370 incident in March last year, whereby the plane was yet to be found, Akbar revealed that Qatar Airways was collaborating with a partner to ensure that it could track its planes throughout the entire flight.

“We are currently exploring this possibility. We are working with a supplier (that we can’t disclose) where all flight data that is recorded on the black boxes of our aircraft can be received on the ground. “We are hoping that once this tracking capability is proven, it will be incorporated by other airlines as well.”

On March 8, MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Separately, Akbar said Qatar Airways would not be reducing its ticket prices despite lower fuel prices at the moment. “There will be no reduction in prices but there will be a reduction in fuel surcharge. Fuel is just one of the costs of an airline. It’s not 100% of the cost,” he said.

Meanwhile, Qatar Airways has taken delivery of the world’s first Airbus A350 XWB, which is part of the airline’s initiative to improve its passenger experience. The aircraft, which will be deployed on its Doha to Frankfurt route from Jan 15, is the first of 80 A350 XWB that the airline has ordered.

“We want to be a five-star airline offering the best level of service in the sky,” Akbar said, adding that Qatar Airways would be deploying the future A350 XWB aircraft to its US, Europe and Asian routes. The aircraft boasts 36 business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration, while the economy class comprises 247 seats in a 3-3-3 configuration.

-thestar online.