Dhaka increased by Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways has officially announced that it has increased its presence in the Dhaka marketplace as a result of an expanded bilateral accord that Qatar has signed with Bangladesh.

The new accord would allow QR to operate 28 flights per week as a result of which Doha-Chittagong was announced on 24APR as a new route to be launched in 2018.

As far as DOH-DAC is concerned, frequencies are increased from double to triple daily nonstop using an A330 exclusively (mix of A332s and A333s).

The new daily flight is a morning departure from DOH designed to connect with its second daily JFK-DOH + daily PHL-DOH service conveniently. The schedule of the triple daily operation is as follows:

Dep DOH 0900/1700/2145 Arr DAC 1650/0050/0535

Dep DAC 0210/0755/1955 Arr DOH 0515/1100/2300

Demand from DAC to the Middle East in 2016 was as follows:

JED 440,000

RUH 390,000
DOH 265,000
DXB 220,000
MCT 215,000
DMM 200,000
KWI 200,000
AUH 140,000
BAH 125,000
AMM 70,000
BEY 65,000
MED 65,000

Etihad reduces Melbourne and suspends Venice

Etihad Airways has officially announced that as part of its Right Size Right Shape strategy, it shall be reducing capacity to Melbourne from the on set of the IATA Winter 2017 season.

Currently, EY operates a double daily nonstop AUH-MEL service using an A380 + B77W each respectively. However effective 30OCT, capacity is reduced by -24% as it will be utilizing a daily B789 + daily B77W each respectively on this route.

In addition to the above, it has confirmed the suspension of its AUH-VCE (Venice) from 29OCT17 onwards as it is likely to be converted into a summer seasonal service or suspended outright (which is better as there is no real need to fly there for EY)

Qatar Airways announces San Francisco + more new routes

At the on-going Arabian Travel Mart today, Qatar Airways has officially announced a new round of 12 destinations that will be added to its route network in 2018.

They are as follows:

• San Francisco
• Chittagong
• Lisbon
• Accra
• Cardiff
• Abidjan
• Malaga
• Kiev
• Prague
• Mombasa
• Pattaya
• Mykonos (Greece)

Alitalia announces Rome-Maldives nonstop

Alitalia has officially announced that it shall be launching new nonstop flights to MLE-Male, Maldives effective 31OCT17 as the carrier looks to take advantage of the rising demand from Europe to the Indian Ocean island.

AZ has scheduled 3 weekly nonstop flights to be operated using an A332 using the below mentioned schedule:

Days - TUE/FRI/SAT

AZ 776 Dep FCO 2145 Arr MLE 1105+1
AZ 777 Dep MLE 1310 Arr FCO 1930

Demand from EU to MLE in 2016 was as follows:

LON - 165,000

FRA - 101,000

MUC - 68,000

CDG - 61,000

DME - 59,000

MXP - 46,000

ZRH - 40,000

FCO - 37,000

VIE - 25,000

MAD - 18,000

CPH - 14,000

DUS - 14,000

ARN - 13,000

GVA - 12,000