First Qatar-Goa non-stop flight reaches Dabolim airport

The first Doha-Goa non-stop flight of Qatar Airways touched down here at the Dabolim International airport, where the passengers including the crew were accorded a rousing reception early today.

''The QR-224 flight from Doha arrived at Dabolim early this morning with a delegation of airline officials on board besides a host of internationalmedia persons as the carrier's guests,'' the Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker announced here.

Interacting with mediapersons on the expansion plans of his airways, Mr Baker said the airlines had decided to ''capitalise on the start of the winter holiday season with the destination particularly popular with holidaymakers from across Europe from where Qatar Airways has excellent connecting flights.'' ''Ours is the first full-service long-haul scheduled international airline flying to Goa. The carrier is using an Airbus A320 in a two-class configuration of 12 seats in Business and 132 seats in Economy on the route,'' he said.

Together with the launch of services to the north Indian city of Amritsar two weeks ago, the Goa route takes Qutar Airways' capacity across the country to 64 flights a week spread across 10 cities, he said.

The airline now operates daily non-stop services from Doha to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode together with four-flights-a-week to both Amritsar and Goa, he said.

''With a huge Goan community living and working in the Gulf, our new route has been long awaited and will help facilitate travel for expatriates between our two regions and beyond. Being the start of the winter holiday season, Goa will see a huge influx of holidaymakers from across the world, especially Europe,'' Mr Baker said.

European holidaymakers have traditionally flown with seasonal charter operators to Goa, but with our new scheduled service, we are offering a unique year-round alternative, our award winning levels of hospitality across our economy and premium cabins, he said.

Beginning December 6, he said, Qutar airways makes its foray into Australia with scheduled non-stop flights from Dhoa to Melbourne, followed by services to Sydney. Two other points in Europe, yet to be announced willbe launched over the next few months

-- (UNI) -- 26BY28.xml

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