Qatar Airways – Now Fly to Phuket

Monday, 18 October 2010. One of the world’s very few five-star alliance airlines “Qatar Airways” has launched scheduled flights to Phuket. This is Qatar’s second destination in Thailand.

Earlier this month, Thai-China tourism ministry has also declared the changing trends as more tourists worldwide prefer to fly to Phuket directly. For Gulf’s national carrier and state-backed airline, ‘Qatar Airways’ this is just the perfect timing to launch the route. This year, it is the eight’s new Route opened by this star alliance carrier and is meant to form part of a concerted push by the airline to capitalize on the tourist traffic to Thailand. As stated by Akbar Al Baker, CEO, Qatar Airways.

“Visitor numbers to Phuket are on the rise and Qatar Airways will look to take advantage of our European connections from countries like Russia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the UK and other parts of Europe to bring them to Phuket. Foreign visitors are expected to top 4.5 million in 2010 and with only a handful of airlines offering flights from Europe, the opportunity is there for us to acquire market share.”

Also, earlier this month, Qatar Airways announced to ramp up daily flights from Doha to Bangkok from twice daily to three times a day, effective from November 1, 2010.