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Qatar Airways launches THREE daily flights from London Gatwick

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On a one to ten scale of weirdness, this is – on the face of it – quite high.

At the ITB travel show in Berlin yesterday (and where I am today) Qatar Airways announced two to three new daily flights between London Gatwick and Doha.

The flights will start on 22nd May with two new daily services.

A third service will run on Friday and Saturday between 15th June and 29th September.

All flights use a Boeing 787-8, so this will be the very good herringbone layout in Business Class and not the new Qsuite.  My review of that seat is here.

This is a lot of extra capacity to add into the market with just three months notice.  The continuation of the blockade with the UAE is stopping Qatar Airways being used as a cheaper indirect option to get to Dubai or Abu Dhabi

Late May is also a bad time to start a service because you are entering the peak Summer months where Doha as a final destination starts to look very unattractive due to the heat.   Adding a 3rd daily flight just as the heat becomes unbearable is even odder!  Most people will choose to transfer onwards, of course.

I get a feeling that this is linked to British Airways and its need to ‘use or lose’ the Gatwick slots it acquired from the administrators of Monarch.  BA has possibly given its biggest shareholder free use of three slot pairs.

BA and Qatar Airways have a joint venture on routes between London and Doha so British Airways will be getting a cut of the revenue.  This may also allow British Airways to effectively drop its own Doha service – which has been suspended for a while – to free up an aircraft whilst the 787 fleet is awaiting engine repairs.

The press release is here.

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Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (92)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • xcalx says:
    8 Mar8 March 09:33

    Hopefully just an IT glitch

  • mark2 says:
    8 Mar8 March 09:49

    If you read further down that thread ….

  • Andrew says:
    8 Mar8 March 09:51

    Off-topic Bits…

    I was looking to book a hotel in the M6 area near Manchester/Liverpool – I usually check Expedia first for general pricing then book direct with whichever works with my current points targets.

    Booking direct with IHG was going to cost between 30-40% more than booking with Expedia. Of course, as those prices are only available when you log into Expedia, they aren’t covered by the price promise…

    • TripRep says:
      8 Mar8 March 12:02

      A wee bit to the SW, but the DoubleTree Chester is v good. Gave me the presidential suite last time I was there. Dont get over excited. Probably more suited the President of a Golf Club than a head of state… 😀

      Nice hotel tho, good pool/spa, great breakfast and friendly staff. Can be had for £65 on a Sunday eve, (I’m considering booking there again soon.)

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        8 Mar8 March 21:52

        Not sure if it’s really close enough to the M6 but I would second the DT Chester. Stayed there a few times and it’s a nice hotel with great grounds.

  • Lee says:
    8 Mar8 March 09:55

    OT – update for using Platinum card with AMEX travel £600 £200 off offer on last day
    called AMEX today and was told they can’t see the offer stored in my account, I will have to upload the email from THEM that states the offer was used to THEIR document centre. Now the link to the document centre has broken.

    I always praised AMEX platinum cs and IT was one of the best, but experienced a few issues with them like missing rewards, late credit etc.

    • xcalx says:
      8 Mar8 March 10:36

      I too have had problems with Amex Plt customer service and the small shop promotion whereby the
      5 supplementary card holders had to each phone in to receive the £5 credits because the amex agent had decided that only the main card holder was allowed the credits. Escalated this issue but received a letter confirming that the agent was correct and all supplementary card holders would need to phone in or no credits would be issued. A total waste of every ones time.

      • Chris says:
        8 Mar8 March 17:30

        I had to cancel my Amex plat as I was left owed over £200 from Amex shop small where they refused to give me credit for some places that were on their map, and where the merchant receipt tallied with the name on the map.

        The CS agents came across as openly hostile to me each time I queried them on it.

    • guesswho2000 says:
      8 Mar8 March 12:20

      I’d give it another couple of days, I used the 50 back on 200 on the last day (28/2) and it finally turned up today, after just saying offer expired.

      Did you get the email from Amex when you redeemed the offer? Normally an email comes almost instantly when you make the qualifying purchase.

    • Cormac says:
      8 Mar8 March 18:53

      +1 Chasing down the 50% conversion bonus to Hilton points – AMEX claimed Hilton was no longer a partner (which is wrong) – so I’ve asked for a case to be opened, and they are now looking into it further. Not the AMEX that I’ve rated for years.

  • AndyGWP says:
    8 Mar8 March 10:36

    OT – does an Avios.com booking (as I had to use my Lloyds upgrade voucher), have the same 24 hour ‘cooling off’ period (for full refund including £’s) that would be provided if booked via. BA.com?

    • Lady London says:
      8 Mar8 March 17:57

      It worked for me when I needed to cancel one. However on two other occasions I’ve booked an avios ticket and tried to cancel but couldn’t get any of the BA call centres to pick up the phone in the time.

  • Rob says:
    8 Mar8 March 10:43

    Read the f’in thread first before posting it 🙂

    • JamesB says:
      8 Mar8 March 19:23

      WOW that is at least two Fs this week Rob!

      • TripRep says:
        8 Mar8 March 20:18

        lol, I’m liking the testy Rob, quite refreshing as he’s usually uber polite and mega patient, nice to see he’s human, plus remember not the easiest start to the week for him. .

      • Rob says:
        8 Mar8 March 21:04

        There was a smiley – but he did post a link to a thread which actually answered the question he posted!

      • xcalx says:
        9 Mar9 March 14:10

        Yeah it’s getting like the BA thread on FT. LOL

        If Rob would upgrade this site we could edit our own cock ups.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    8 Mar8 March 11:34

    How did you get it to price up? Kept showing at 34k each way when I tried.

    • Luthar says:
      8 Mar8 March 13:07

      Change your address on your Iberia account to a Spanish or US address. The offer is technically only available to residents in Spain, USA, Argentina and some other countries. However, changing your address is all you need to do, I don’t see how they can verify it.

      • Rob says:
        8 Mar8 March 16:15

        Ah, that would explain why I couldn’t get it to work last time they did this offer ….

  • SarahO says:
    8 Mar8 March 11:37

    What’s Ethiopian Business Class like? Have the option to fly with them to Windhoek but wasn’t sure.

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