Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways is the main airline of the country of Qatar. It was started by the government of Qatar in 1993 and is still owned by the government. The airline’s home is in a tall building called the Qatar Airways Tower in the city of Doha.

From its home base at Hamad International Airport, Qatar Airways flies to many places around the world using a special plan called a hub-and-spoke network. Today, the airline has more than 200 planes and employs over 43,000 people.

Qatar Airways is part of a group of airlines called Oneworld, joining them in October 2013. Since 2015, its slogan has been “Going Places Together.”

History

Origin

From 1974 until May 2002, the State of Qatar was part of Gulf Air with Oman, the UAE state of Abu Dhabi, and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Qatar was the first to leave the airline, but stayed for six months after telling Gulf Air it would leave.

Foundation

Qatar Airways started in 1993 and began flying in 1994. Its first flight went to Amman in May 1994. By April 1995, it had 75 workers and two Airbus A310 planes flying to places like Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Cairo, Dubai, Khartoum, Kuwait, Madras, Manila, Muscat, Sharjah, Taipei, Tokyo and Trivandrum. In 1995, it bought two Boeing 747s from All Nippon Airways. In 1996, it bought a second-hand Boeing 747SP from Air Mauritius.

Flights to Athens, Istanbul, Madras and Tunis stopped in late 1996. Calcutta and Muscat were dropped in 1997. Flights to London began in 1997. The airline got two leased Airbus A300-600R planes in 1997. A new logo came with these planes. A third A300-600R joined soon after, also leased. In July 1998, the airline ordered six Airbus A320s to arrive between 2001 and 2005, with options for five more. In 1998, it also leased four Airbus A320s from Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise (SALE), to arrive between February and April 1999. These planes would replace the Boeing 727-200 Advanced fleet. The first A320 with Aero Engines V2500 arrived in February 1999.

2000s

A fourth A300-600R joined in April 2000. In October 2000, Qatar Airways ordered an International Aero Engines V2500-powered Airbus A319CJ and took an option for another. In 2001, the airline became the ninth customer for the Airbus A380, ordering two with two options. It also resumed flights to Jakarta. In May 2002, Qatar left Gulf Air to grow its own airline.

In June 2003, Qatar Airways was the first to resume international flights to Iraq with the Doha–Basra route. That same month, it added its first dedicated cargo plane, an Airbus A300-600R converted in Germany for US$10 million. Also in June 2003, at the Paris Air Show, it ordered two Airbus A321s, 14 Airbus A330s and two Airbus A340-600s. The deal included eight A330-200s and six -300s, with options for more. The first planes were to arrive in 2004, with the A340-600 in 2006. That year, it also started flights to Shanghai, Manchester in April, Tripoli in November, and Cebu and Singapore in December. During the 2003 Dubai Air Show, it confirmed an order for two Airbus A380s with options for two more, worth US$1.2 billion. In 2003, Qatar Airways became the first airline to be audited under the new IATA IOSA programme.

The Qatar Airways Group reported its first profit ever for the fiscal year ending in March 2004. In FY2004, it carried 3.35 million passengers. Zürich became its 53rd destination in July 2004; Yangon joined in December. A new service to Osaka began in March 2005. Its first A340 arrived on September 8, 2006.

In May 2007, Qatar Airways and Airbus signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to buy 80 Airbus A350 XWBs, including 20 Airbus A350-800s and 20 of the –900 and –1000 versions, with the first due in 2013. The order became firm in June at the 2007 Paris Air Show; three more Airbus A380s were added. In July 2007, during the Boeing 787 unveiling, Qatar Airways was named a future customer when its logo appeared on the new plane. By then, it had not said if it ordered any of these planes. In November 2007, it confirmed an order for 30 Boeing 787-8s, plus options for 35 more of the –9 or –10 version. The order also included 14 Boeing 777-300ERs, six Boeing 777-200LRs and seven Boeing 777Fs, with options for five more. The total order was US$13.5 billion. The airline got its first 335-seater Boeing 777-300ER in late November 2007. In 2007, the route network grew with Newark in June, Nagpur in September, and Stockholm in November. A new service to New York-JFK started in November 2008, replacing Newark. The first two Boeing 777-200LRs arrived in February 2009. On June 15, 2009, at the Paris Air Show, Qatar Airways ordered 20 Airbus A320 and four Airbus A321 planes worth $1.9bn. On October 12, 2009, the company made the world's first commercial flight using fuel from natural gas. In 2009, it also began flights to Australia, starting with Melbourne; routes to Chengdu, Hangzhou, Phnom Penh and Clark International Airport in the Philippines also started that year.

2010s

Tokyo-Narita became a destination in April 2010. On May 18, 2010, the airline used its first Boeing 777F (A7-BFA) for a flight from Doha to Amsterdam. The plane arrived on May 14, 2010. Since 2010, the airline has added 22 new places to fly, with nine more announced: Ankara, Aleppo, Bangalore, Barcelona, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Hanoi, Montreal, Nice, Phuket, São Paulo, Shiraz, Kolkata, Medina, Oslo, Sofia, Stuttgart, Venice and Tokyo. Qatar Airways also started flying to Benghazi and Entebbe in 2011. Flights to Baku and Tbilisi, planned for 2011, were delayed to February 1, 2012, because of "operational issues".

Boeing gave Qatar Airways its 100th plane, a Boeing 777-200LR, in September 2011. In November 2011, at the Dubai Airshow, the airline ordered 55 Airbus planes: 50 A320neo and five A380, plus two Boeing 777 freighters.

In July 2012, Perth became the second city in Australia to be served. On October 8, 2012, Qatar Airways said it would join Oneworld within 18 months. British Airways helped with this. The joining happened on October 29, 2013.

On November 12, 2012, Qatar Airways got its first Dreamliner plane, the seventh airline in the world to do so. It was the first Middle Eastern airline to get this plane. The plane first flew on the Doha–Dubai route on November 20. Dreamliner flights on the Doha–London-Heathrow route started on December 13, making Qatar Airways the first to regularly fly this route with the Dreamliner. In 2013, Qatar Airways started flights to Gassim in Saudi Arabia, Basra and Najaf in Iraq, Phnom Penh, Salalah and Chicago. Flights to Ethiopia began in September 2013.

In February 2013, Qatar Airways opened its European Customer Service centre in Wrocław, Poland.

In June 2013, the airline confirmed an order for two Boeing 777-300ER planes plus seven options. On November 17, 2013, the first day of the Dubai Airshow, Qatar Airways bought 50 Boeing 777-9Xs. The order became firm during the 2014 Farnborough Air Show in a deal worth US$18.9 billion; options for 50 more were also taken. The deal also included firm orders for four Boeing 777Fs plus options for four more, worth US$2.7 billion. The passenger planes are expected to start arriving in 2020.

After emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani took power in June 2013, Qatar Airways became fully owned by the state. The 50% share owned by former prime minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani and others was bought by the government. This happened when Hamad bin Jassim left his public jobs, such as foreign minister and chief executive of the Qatar Investment Authority, after Tamim became emir.

An all-business class flight to London-Heathrow started in May 2014 with Airbus A319LR planes. Flights to Edinburgh began in May 2014. The airline planned to get its first three Airbus A380 planes in June 2014, to show them at the Farnborough Air Show. It intended to start A380 flights to London on June 17, but delays pushed this to August 1, 2014. The first A380 arrived on September 16, 2014. A380 flights to London began in October 2014. The airline was the first to get the A350 XWB; the first Airbus A350-900 arrived on December 22, 2014, and its first paying flight was to Frankfurt on January 15, 2015.

In January 2015, the airline ordered four Boeing 777Fs for US$1.24 billion and took options on four more. In June 2015, it ordered ten Boeing 777-8Xs and four more Boeing 777Fs for US$4.18 billion.

In August 2015, Qatar Airways changed its rules about firing cabin crew for getting pregnant or marrying early in their jobs. The airline said, "our policies have evolved with the airline's growth". Under the new rules, "we will give someone a chance to keep working in a ground job", the spokeswoman said.

In January 2016, the airline got its first Boeing 747 nose loader. In 2016, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines said their investigators found documents saying Qatar Airways got more than $7 billion in help from the Qatari government. The U.S. Department of State talked to Qatar officials about this, but no formal action was taken. Qatar Airways said it did not get any help and its CEO Akbar Al Baker said the claims were wrong.

As of February 5, 2017, the airline had the longest regular flight for a commercial airline, between Doha and Auckland. On September 1, 2017, Qatar Airways bought 49% of AQA Holding, the new owner of Meridiana.

In November 2018, the airline said it would add flights to Iran, landing at Tehran and Shiraz starting in January 2019, and to Isfahan in February. In December 2018, the CEO of Qatar Airways, Akbar Al Baker, said he might leave the Oneworld alliance in February because of claims that alliance members Qantas and American Airlines were doing "hostile business" against his airline. In 2018, at a meeting of the International Air Transport Association, the CEO said a woman could not do his job because "it is a very challenging position." After people said this was wrong, Al Baker said he did not mean all women at Qatar Airways. He also said he would like to have a female CEO after him. He later said sorry for his comments in a statement to The Independent.

On April 30, 2019, Qatar Airways stopped using its last Airbus A340-600 after about 16 years. The last flight was QR835 from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport to Hamad International Airport. The airline stopped using this plane to make its fleet younger and because it did not work as well as the Boeing 777, as CEO Akbar Al Baker said in 2009.

2020s

In July 2023, the Government of Australia blocked Qatar Airways from increasing its flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. The government said this was against Australia's national interest, even though Qatar Airways and tourism operators disagreed.

In October 2023, Qatar Airways worked with Starlink to give high-speed internet on its planes.

In March 2024, Qatar Airways introduced Sama 2.0, an "AI cabin crew." In August 2024, it bought a 25% share in Airlink.

In February 2025, Qatar Airways bought a 25% stake in Virgin Australia Holdings.

Corporate affairs

Business trends

Qatar Airways shares important changes each year in its reports, which cover the time from April to March.

Key people

Since November 2023, Badr Mohammed Al-Meer has been the leader of Qatar Airways. He took over from Akbar Al Baker, who led the airline from 1996 until 2023.

Ownership and subsidiaries

The government of Qatar has fully owned Qatar Airways since 2013. By March 2023, more than 48,000 people worked for the airline, with 32,000 directly for Qatar Airways. The airline has many parts, such as Qatar Aircraft Catering Company and Doha International Airport.

Divisions

Cargo

Qatar Airways Cargo is the world's third largest carrier for goods. It started special cargo flights in 2009 and added more routes over the years.

Qatar Executive

Qatar Executive is a part of Qatar Airways that handles special flights for businesses, with its own unique design.

Al Maha Airways

Al Maha Airways was planned to serve Saudi Arabia but was cancelled in 2017 due to problems with getting permission to operate.

Livery

Qatar Airways uses the oryx, Qatar's national animal, as its logo. The airline’s design includes the word “Qatar” in burgundy letters on the plane, with the oryx shown on the tail.

Natural gas to liquid fuel demonstration

In 2009, Qatar Airways made history by using a special mix of fuels on a flight from London to Doha. This showed that jet fuel could come from natural gas.

Sponsorships

Qatar Airways supports many events and teams around the world. It has sponsored weather forecasts, football clubs like FC Barcelona and FC Bayern Munich, and many other sports events and teams.

Investments

Qatar Airways has invested in many airlines and projects around the world. It owns parts of International Airlines Group, RwandAir, LATAM Airlines Group, and Cathay Pacific, among others. It also supports sports events and youth programs.

Destinations

Main article: List of Qatar Airways destinations

Qatar Airways flies to more than 90 countries on all six continents where people live. This includes 13 places in India and 11 in the United States.

In 2012, fourteen more places were added to where the airline flies: Addis Ababa, Baghdad, Belgrade, Erbil, Gassim, Kigali, Kilimanjaro, Maputo, Mombasa, Perth, Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, Yangon, and Zagreb.

On May 27, 2014, a flight from Bahrain landed at Doha's Hamad International Airport. This marked the start of Qatar Airways using its new airport, replacing Doha International Airport. By December 2014^[update], Qatar Airways served 146 places worldwide after starting flights to Asmara. The airline also added flights to Dallas/Fort Worth, Tokyo (Haneda), Miami, Edinburgh, Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, and Djibouti. Starting in June 2015, the airline began flying to Amsterdam. Starting in December 2015, it announced plans to fly to Durban.

Qatar Airways started a new route to Australia in 2016, with a direct flight from Adelaide. This flight used the Airbus A350 airplane and was later operated by a Boeing 777-300ER.

In June 2017, all Qatar Airways flights were not allowed to land in Emirati, Saudi Arabian, Bahrain, and Egyptian airports. This happened because of the 2017 diplomatic crisis. Airlines in those countries also stopped flying through Qatar's airspace and airports. This ban lasted until January 2021, when it ended.

On June 18, 2019, Qatar Airways flew its first trip from Doha to Davao in the Philippines.

On July 1, 2019, three months after saying it would fly to Mogadishu, Qatar Airways began its first flight to Somalia.

In August 2019, the airline started flights to Langkawi as part of its plans to grow in Southeast Asia. This was Qatar Airways' third place to fly to in Malaysia, after Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

In September 2020, Qatar Airways stopped flights to Birmingham Airport and Cardiff Airport because fewer people were traveling due to COVID-19 rules. Flights to Birmingham started again on July 6, 2023, but flights to Cardiff did not restart.

In January 2021, the ban ended, and Qatar Airways could fly to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, and use their airspace again.

As of January 25, 2021, Qatar Airways flew to 120 places after solving an airspace problem with nearby countries. The airline planned to reach 130 places to fly to by March 2021.

On July 24, 2021, Qatar Airways started flying to Cebu again after eight years. Cebu is the second biggest city in the Philippines and the third place there that Qatar Airways flies to.

On September 1, 2023, Qatar Airways began flying again to Auckland with flights seven times a week using its Airbus A350-1000 airplane. This route is one of the longest non-stop flights in the world, about 9,032 air miles.

On January 7, 2025, after tensions eased in Syria, Qatar Airways started flying three times a week to Damascus again after 13 years. This helped Syria connect with important places in the area. Later, Qatar Airways said it would start flying to Malta on July 2, 2025, using its Airbus A320 airplanes.

In March 2025, Qatar Airways said it would add more flights to meet higher travel needs in the summer. Starting October 27, it will have eight daily flights to London Heathrow, totaling 56 flights each week. Flights to Male in the Maldives will increase from 13 to 28 each week by late December. Starting December 16, flights to Miami will go up to twelve each week, and Tokyo will have eleven flights each week.

Codeshare agreements

Qatar Airways has codeshare agreements with the following airlines and train systems:

• Aer Lingus
• Air Botswana
• Air Malta
• Air Serbia
• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Asiana Airlines
• Azerbaijan Airlines
• Bangkok Airways
• British Airways
• Bulgaria Air
• Cathay Pacific
• China Southern Airlines
• Deutsche Bahn (railway)
• Finnair
• Garuda Indonesia
• Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes
• Iberia
• IndiGo
• Japan Airlines
• JetBlue
• Kenya Airways
• LATAM Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Middle East Airlines
• Oman Air
• Royal Air Maroc
• Royal Jordanian
• RwandAir
• S7 Airlines
• SUN-AIR
• SNCF (railway)
• SriLankan Airlines
• Virgin Australia
• Vueling
• XiamenAir

Fleet

Qatar Airways has many airplanes, both small and large. Some of the planes they use are the Airbus A320, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, Airbus A380, Boeing 737 MAX, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. They have 230 airplanes in total.

Cabin

First class

First class seats have special features like massage options and an entertainment system. This class is only found on the A380 planes and includes very large seats (about 90 inches) that can turn into a flat bed for sleeping. Each seat also has its own TV screen.

Business class

Business class passengers get seats that turn into flat beds with easy access to the aisle. These seats are on Airbus A380, Airbus A350, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 planes. On other planes, the seats can also lay flat and have massage options.

In 2017, Qatar Airways introduced a new business class called "Qsuite." These seats have doors and can be arranged so passengers can face each other like in a small dining room. Some pairs of seats can even be turned into a double bed.

Economy class

Economy class seats are about 34 inches apart, giving passengers enough space. On A330 planes, each seat has its own TV screen. On Airbus A350, A380, Boeing 777, and 787 planes, passengers can use touch-screen entertainment systems.

Qatar Airways has added personal TV screens to many A320 planes in economy class. New economy seats were introduced on the 787 planes. These seats are a bit narrower and have smaller screens, but they also offer Wi‑Fi and places to charge devices.

In-flight entertainment

Qatar Airways’ entertainment system is called Oryx One. Most planes have personal TV screens for each passenger to watch shows and movies. Some smaller planes show entertainment on a main screen instead.

The airline also offers Wi‑Fi on many of its planes, including all A380, A350, B777, B787, A319, and some A320, A321, and A330 aircraft. Passengers can use Starlink Wi‑Fi for free on all B777 planes.

Lounges

In 2015, Qatar Airways opened the Al Safwa First Lounge for its first-class passengers.

The airline's first lounge outside Doha opened at London Heathrow's Terminal 4 in January 2012. In April 2016, it opened a new Premium Lounge at Dubai-International's Concourse D. In January 2017, Qatar Airways opened another new premium lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport. This was the airline's third international lounge. The lounge can hold up to 200 passengers and has two terraces.

Controversies

Treatment of employees

Qatar Airways has had questions about how it treats its workers. Some say that airline crew are paid less than at other airlines. Workers have also said they feel watched and controlled, and worry about losing their jobs if they speak up.

2020 Doha Airport searches

In 2020, some women on a Qatar Airways flight were asked to go through searches that many found uncomfortable. This happened after something was found in an airport bathroom. The searches caused upset and led to discussions between Australia and Qatar about what happened.

Hostilities with other Oneworld members

Since joining a group of airlines called Oneworld in 2013, Qatar Airways has had public disagreements with some other members in this group. This includes disputes with American Airlines and Qantas. These disagreements have sometimes led to changes in how the airlines work together and in competition.

Possible involvement in the death of Marc Bennett

In 2022, a British man named Marc Bennett died in Qatar. He had worked for Qatar Airways but left to work for a rival company. After he left, he was arrested and held for three weeks. His family said he was treated very badly during this time. Qatar said that his death was a personal tragedy.

European Union bribery cases

In 2024, a former EU transport chief was investigated for taking free flights from Qatar Airways while discussing important travel rules. This led to questions about whether decisions were fair. In 2026, he was fired for breaking rules about gifts and conflicts of interest.

Sexist remarks by CEO Al Baker

Akbar Al Baker, who was the CEO of Qatar Airways from 1996 to 2023, made some comments that many people thought were unfair to women. For example, in 2017, he made a remark about the age of women working as flight crew, which many found offensive. He later apologized for this comment. In 2018, he also made a comment suggesting that a woman could not handle the job of leading the airline, which he later said was a joke, though he did not fully take back his belief.