(TAN): Qatar Airways will incrementally increase flights to Montréal from January 16 2021 and operate daily frequencies by February 25 2021, up from the previously scheduled four weekly frequencies. The Montréal service is operated by Qatar Airways’ state-of-the-art Airbus A350-900 featuring 36 seats in Qsuite Business Class and 247 seats in Economy Class.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are delighted to increase our services to Montréal, further enhancing connectivity for our Canadian customers, while offering our passengers traveling to and from North America seamless access to more than 75 destinations in Africa, Asia, India and the Middle East via our multiple award winning hub, Hamad International Airport.”
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Ambassador of Canada to Qatar Stefanie McCollum, said: “These additional flights will give travellers more opportunities to discover Canada and all that it has to offer.”
Qatar Airways’ strategic investment in a variety of fuel-efficient twin-engine aircraft, including the largest fleet of Airbus A350 aircraft, has enabled it to continue flying throughout this crisis and perfectly positions it to lead the sustainable recovery of international travel. The airline recently took delivery of three new state-of-the-art Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, increasing its total A350 fleet to 52 with an average age of just 2.6 years. Qatar Airways has also recently launched a new program that enables passengers to voluntarily offset the carbon emissions associated with their journey at the point of booking.
Due to Covid-19’s impact on travel demand, the airline has grounded its fleet of Airbus A380s as it is not environmentally justifiable to operate such a large, four-engine aircraft in the current market. The airline’s internal benchmark compared the A380 to the A350 on routes from Doha to London, Guangzhou, Frankfurt, Paris, Melbourne, Sydney and New York.
On a typical one-way flight, the airline found the A350 aircraft saved a minimum of 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per block hour compared to the A380. The analysis found that the A380 emitted over 80% more CO2 per block hour than the A350 on each of these routes. In the cases of Melbourne and New York, the A380 emitted 95% more CO2 per block hour with the A350 saving around 20 tonnes of CO2 per block hour. Until passenger demand recovers to appropriate levels, Qatar Airways will continue to keep its A380 aircraft grounded, ensuring it only operates commercially and environmentally responsible aircraft.
