Qatar Airways will use the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Doha as an exercise to trial the deployment of widebody aircraft on flights to Belgrade and Zagreb. As previously reported, as a result of the expected growth in demand due to the sporting event, the carrier will utilise its Airbus A330-200 and -300 series jets to the Serbian capital. The 305-seat A330-300, featuring thirty seats in business class and the remaining 275 in the economy cabin, will be utilised from November 17 until November 20. From November 21 until December 3, Qatar will deploy the 260-seat A330-200 jet, after which it will again use its A330-300 aircraft until December 20. On the other hand, starting November 20 until December 20, the Qatari carrier will deploy its 254-seat Boeing 787-8 to Zagreb, featuring 22 seats in business class and the remaining 232 in economy.
The airline will utilise the opportunity to test the use of widebodies on the two routes prior to the 2023 summer season, particularly in terms of cargo demand. Qatar Airways has seen healthy loads to both Belgrade and Zagreb this summer. Despite ongoing restrictions throughout Asia, from which it drew a significant portion of travellers on the two routes, the carrier has seen strong loads from Australia, which fully reopened earlier this year and is now generating the bulk of its traffic to the Serbian and Croatian capitals. It has further benefited from Etihad Airways’ exit from the Serbian market and Emirates’ withdrawal from the Croatian market. The airline is seeing solid loads in its premium cabin as well.
Qatar Airways is currently experiencing a severe fleet shortage resulting from the grounding of 23 of its Airbus A350 aircraft due to an ongoing spat with Airbus over air worthiness issues, which the planemaker rejects. The carrier is wet-leasing equipment from the likes of Oman Air, leasing jets from Cathay Pacific, and has invited its partners American Airlines, Air Canada and Malaysia Airlines in launching flights to Doha to replace it on some of its services to New York, Toronto and Kuala Lumpur. This has prevented the airline from using its twin-aisle jets on occasion to Belgrade and Zagreb this summer. However, the fleet shortage is expected to ease with Boeing resuming deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner this month. The airline has 23 of the jets on order.
Qatar Airways is yet to fully restore its pre-pandemic frequencies to Belgrade and Zagreb. Although it maintained daily flights to the Serbian capital for most of the summer, it will run five weekly operations to the city from September 5. Previously, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, it maintained ten weekly services during the peak summer months and daily for the rest of the year. Similarly, in Zagreb, it currently runs five weekly flights, down from double daily prior to the global health emergency. From the end of this week, frequencies will decrease to three weekly. It should be noted that Qatar Airways drafted its summer timetable for the two cities back in February and has stuck to it. During the upcoming World Cup, services to both the Serbian and Croatian capitals will run on a daily basis.
.gif)
Really hope so. They have been flying these two routes with A320 / A321 for 10 years now
ReplyDeleteI fly regularly 4 times per year to ZAG with Qatar. Often its not loaded half even.
DeleteCurrently they are full on all their flights. Their loads are very good.
Delete@9.06 yes of course, they are always empty. That's why ZAG was operating double daily. Probably empty on both daily flights. Just for the fun of it.
DeleteAnd they were about to launch Dubrovnik in summer 2020 but then Covid happened.
DeleteWonder if DBV launch plans will ever come back.
DeleteProbably not for another 2 years.
DeleteDepends when if Asian and particularly south east Asian countries allow their citizens to travel freely again.
DeleteI could see them upgrading both the 787
ReplyDeleteQatar is to expensive for ex yu standards. It will never fill up an widebody-plane.
ReplyDeleteUntil Covid it was one of the cheapest airlines from ex-Yu to Asia and Australia (if not the cheapest). But that was their strategy across Europe. They dumped fares to get people to fly with them. Now that they have the volume, they no longer have to sell cheap tickets.
DeleteDepends on the route. For example they sell BEG-DXB for the same price as Flydubai's nonstop route. And Flydubai is an LCC.
DeleteYou'd be surprised. Besides, these flights have a large amount of Indian and Chinese transferring passengers going through Doha
DeleteI don’t know if they were the cheapest to China but many carriers were in +/- 50€ range so it was up to personal preference.
DeleteHowever, they were by far cheapest in business class and their hard product is way better than competition. For premium tickets, it was a no brainer.
In the absence of QSuites on both A330 and B787-8, I just wish they don’t keep sending the A321 with the oldest version of C seat. Actually I would prefer to see A320 with new C class to any of the above - and the evening departure to Doha.
Meanwhile the resumption of Skopje flights not even in sight :(
ReplyDeleteThere is simply no demand.
DeleteThey will not come back to SKP especially if they resume SKG.
DeleteSo, SKP seems to be definitely out and excluded out of their network inspite of Australia being reopened. They will focus on ZAG and BEG only.
ReplyDeleteQR closed their Skopje office at the end of 2019. Definitely don't think they have plans to come back.
DeleteTheir Airbus 380 is just not enough capacity for Skopje ...
DeleteThere are 2 mistakes in the article:
ReplyDelete1. QR currently runs 5 weekly flights to Zagreb, not daily
2. While world cup, QR will deploy both 787-8 and 787-9 in Zagreb, not only -8 variant.
ZAG going from double daily to 3-5 weekly shows how dependent this route is of tourists.
DeleteWell obviously. I mean Bangkok was their top transfer route.
DeleteOf course. All tourists in Croatia are Thai only, LOL. But some komsije will still proceed with mantra of Croatians not travelling abroad. As same as Kradeze bots will continue spitting on me when saying OU should have started at least NYC and BKK at least decade ago, with codeshares on its alliance "partners", and in case I talk about partners, without quotation marks, to several destinations in North Am, Far East and Australia. And it would have been the case, if corrupted politicians and CEO'S hadn't handed over the entire market to the Cartel, for sake of their own profits and benefits
DeletePOZDRAV ..... Take your MADication and calm down please !
Delete@Pozdrav
Deletestatements that "Croatians dont travel much" are just sophisticated hook to create artificial divide.
I am Slovenian and must say that if Croatia would not have such a beautiful coast not far from us, we Slovenians would travel also much much more ...
DeleteI really hope LJU will eventually happen.
ReplyDeleteAre Fraport and govt. still "talking" to them? Just talks and talks. As always.
DeleteIt took over 10 years to get Flydubai so it will take at least that long to get QR.
DeleteUnfortunately
DeleteGuys as much as we want Qatar to resume with SKP lets not focus on that in this post, this is very good news for BEG and ZAG and it shows where there is demand its working nicely for both the airline and the passengers.
ReplyDeleteWith the lack of short haul planes and their aging A320/A321 fleet, honestly I don't think they will resume SKP until they start getting the 737's
Qatar Airways has already sent widebodies to BEG on occasion. Last time in April, A330-300. Would be nice if it becomes a permanent fixture.
ReplyDeleteAround 2 weeks ago QR231 from Doha to Belgrade was overbooked and everyone showed up. They actually had to offload pax.
ReplyDeleteThe A321 was badly needed on this route this summer. But they have just 1 left in the fleet now.
DeleteThis actually happened pretty often this year
DeleteWith them and Airbus locking horns over paint issues they'll struggle to get the needed capacity for some time.
DeleteAh I remember the day when they used to fly Doha-Budapest-Zagreb and Doha-Ankara-Belgrade :D
ReplyDeleteDOH-SOF-BEG as well.
DeleteOn the Belgrade ones no, even though they asked for it but the CAD blocked them.
DeleteAs for Zagreb I'm not sure, but I think they did.
DeleteThay had 5th freedom on ZAG-BUD sector
DeleteDo you remember hat were the fares like on this sector?
Deletemeant *what
DeleteThe whole Airbus debacle has really screwed them badly and at the worst time - just before the World Cup.
ReplyDeleteIt's their own fault.
DeleteIndeed.
DeleteTheir fleet shortage is so severe that during world cup they are decreasing flights to almost all destinations in countries that are not participating at the world cup (except Gulf countries)
DeleteTheir Moscow flights are pathetic .
DeleteEven Gulf Air has now more flights to Moscow than them .
I'm surprised that their A330s are bigger than their Dreamliners..
ReplyDeleteCapacity wise I mean.
DeleteHad the chance to finally fly with them for the first time 9 days ago. Wow what a great airline and service. Really well done. Hope we see more of them in the region.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to QR on their ex-Yu routes.
ReplyDeleteI think that two daily flights on both routes would work best for them because of connections but probably at one point they will switch to B787.
ReplyDeleteTime for B787 to ZAG and BEG.
ReplyDeleteFor BEG pax it would also be much better to first go down the path of ZAG: have 2x daily connection on A320 instead of 1x A330 or 788.
ReplyDeleteHad there been no Covid they would already been operating widebodies, at least to Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteFor starters they could start sending A320s with upgraded premium product rather than the old recliners that they send all the rime.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey have an entire system. Those A320s with great premium cabins are reserved for routes where there is strong premium demand. Zagreb is one of them.
DeleteMakes sense. They never send it to SOF either.
DeleteThe last time I flew BEG-DOH the A320 had the lie-flat J seat in both directions. Agreed that the equipment lottery is annoying.
DeleteLast year they flew mostly with the lie flat seats but since around June they have been flying almost exclusively the old recliners (with an odd exception here and there). When did you fly with them last time?
DeleteAh, that might be it. I last flew them in January, and before that in May. 3/4 lie-flat seats, I guess I was lucky :) Although to be fair, it's not super relevant on a 5-hour flight.
DeleteAgree its not that important. But I was flyinh with them last week and when 11 out of 12 seats are taken, it makes a difference :)
DeleteBEG has improved so much for them since they introduced direct flights.
ReplyDeleteSo will JU deploy its A330 to Doha?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but it seems like work opening that route up and competing with QR
DeleteThere would be no point for JU to fly to Doha. There are almost no P2P passengers. Qatar is full but all of them are transfers. Air Serbia would have no one to carry. Unless you meant for the World Cup.
DeleteYes, for the world cup
DeleteThey should really use the opportunity of Etihad leaving the Serbian market. In 2019 EY had an average load factor of 98%. That's massive considering they had daily flights,
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt's impressive how well QR does in Belgrade since TK went triple daily and FZ double daily.
ReplyDeleteTrue. The key is Australia. TK doesn't have those passengers and our diaspora doesn't like flying the EK-FZ combo.
DeleteFZ is mostly point to point nowadays, QR is all transfer.
DeleteLast year Indian passengers (undergoing quarantine in Serbia) were their saving grace. This year it is diaspora from Australia :)
DeleteSeems they were the number 1 airline for Chinese transfers before Covid too.
DeleteIt was Etihad until Covid but QR was taking over. Same like they completely took over Australian transfers from EY.
DeleteBetter fares and better service. As well as more destinations in both.
DeleteIf they have cargo I assume they could start sending Dreamliners.
ReplyDeleteThe 787-8 has horrible cargo capabilities. The 777 and the 330 are the workhorses of cargo (on passenger airplanes, not freighters), which is why QR was sending them to China so much, but never the 787.
DeleteHopefully in the near future we will either see wide body or more frequencies to/from BEG, ZAG.
ReplyDeleteQR has been quite successful in competing against Emirates in Zagreb. Smarter strategy by deploying narrow bodies twice per day and catching all connections in their network, rather than sending a widebody in peak summer and then having a few weekly flights with low cost in winter. That's why I think they should work on restoring frequencies rather then sending widebody.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope Duncan Naysmith persuades them to use B787 to BEG :D
ReplyDeleteWhat?
DeleteDon't think it's his job to choose equipment on routes ;)
DeleteStrange they never launched TIA
ReplyDeleteConsidering the demand from the Middle East for Albania this summer, I'm sure they will come.
DeleteExcellent airline
ReplyDeleteIt's overly ambitious, they will come back to their senses.
ReplyDeleteWhat is?
DeleteThem using widebodies on these routes.
DeleteTheir planes are often full to the brink on these routes. Send the bigger machines.
ReplyDeleteCom'n, why? You have Anonymouses here who fly 4 times per year to ZAG on QR and planes are always empty, so if they really deploy Dreamliners it will be for fun only LOL ☺
DeleteDuring that month Belgrade Airport will have service by at least four A330: Qatar, Hainan and two Air Serbia. Will Turkish keep A330 service to Belgrade once a week into winter season?
ReplyDeleteNice to see
DeleteWhait, but when ARB goes to check?
Deletevrv u okt kad dolazi romeo charlie. i bravo i charlie lete tokom dec kad i qatar.
DeleteSo what will happen with Skopje? Will they resume flights? Did they really close their representation office in the city? Why are flights not resumed following Australia's reopening?
ReplyDeleteThe SKP flights were probably never a strong performer considering they flew just a couple of times per week and didn't add any flights since it launched Skopje. I think they will eventually bring it back. Maybe in 2023 or 2024.
DeleteWhat were QR's frequencies to SKP before corona?
Delete3 weekly
DeleteThat's the Corona frequency in ZAG now.
DeleteCan't they just merge SKP with either BEG or ZAG?
DeleteWhy would they do that if ZAG and BEG are performing well for them?
DeleteI wish Air Serbia worked more closely with Qatar Airways. They should at least conclude a codeshare.
ReplyDeleteI think they do have some interline with each other.
DeleteUpgrading to widebody is there best way to competing against Flydubai and Turkish. Offering a morre comfortable alternative and being able to take on more cargo.
ReplyDeleteThe immediate post covid period was crucial for airlines. Those that come back first were able to capitalize on it. QR was one of them.
ReplyDeleteIt wid be
ReplyDeleteI will be the one to use this service at 24th November for Serbia - Brazil match. A330 is already loaded. I am just wondering, will there be an opportunity for A350, because its a match day. We arrive at 16h, and the match is at 21.
ReplyDelete