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Qatar Airways adds more flights to Heathrow and beyond
If you have been looking for Avios availability on Qatar, now is the time to look again as they have added extra flights to a number of destinations. Firstly, Qatar Airways has announced it will add an eighth daily flight between London Heathrow and Doha’s Hamad International Airport, starting from 27 October 2024. The airline will grow from 49 to 56 flights per week.
The route uses a number of aircraft types including Airbus A380 which has the older seats but the fabulous onboard bar/lounge, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft both of which normally have the QSuite.
Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Thierry Antinori, said: “Qatar Airways’ commitment to the UK is stronger than ever. Growing to 56 flights a week – the most of any Gulf carrier – further reinforces our long-standing relationship with London Heathrow Airport, as well as our unique strategic alliance with British Airways, which also operates two flights a day to Doha. This winter, we are proud to offer greater connectivity to our passengers from the UK with 108 weekly frequencies across five airports, flying them to our network of more than 170 destinations in comfort, style and convenience on-board the World’s Best Airline.”
The airline has also announced additional flights to Male, the Maldives; Miami, USA; and Tokyo, Japan for the 2024-2025 season.
Qatar Airways flight to Male (MLE)
Starting 13 December 2024, Qatar Airways flights to Male (MLE) will increase from 21 to 28 weekly flights.
The flights will depart daily as follows:
Doha (DOH) to Male (MLE) – Flight QR672: Departure 01:35; Arrival 08:15
Male (MLE) to Doha (DOH) – Flight QR673: Departure 20:15; Arrival 23:10
Qatar Airways flights to Tokyo (NRT)
Starting 14 February 2025, Qatar Airways flights to Tokyo (NRT) will increase from seven to 11 weekly flights.
Departing every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday:
Doha (DOH) to Tokyo (NRT) – Flight QR808: Departure 20:15; Arrival 11:55
Departing every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday:
Tokyo (NRT) to Doha (DOH) – Flight QR809: Departure 16:25; Arrival 23:10
Qatar Airways flights to Miami (MIA)
Starting 16 December 2024, Qatar Airways flights to Miami (MIA) will increase from 10 to 12 weekly flights.
The flights will depart every Monday and Wednesday:
Doha (DOH) to Miami (MIA) – Flight QR781: Departure 01:20; Arrival 09:50
Miami (MIA) to Doha (DOH) – Flight QR782: Departure 23:30; Arrival 21:05 +1
British Airways’ new disruption tool
Although under UK261 legislation, you are entitled to fly on any other carrier to reach your destination if the airline cannot rebook you on the original airline or partner, it is often a struggle to get this to happen. It usually requires a phone call and can often be refused if it is not an airline they have an agreement with.
In July, BA introduced a new system called Optimised Passenger Recovery. OPR is an automated system used by the airport team and allows extra options to rebook within your booking online. The most significant benefit is that there is now automatic rebooking with alternative airlines outside of oneworld, BA’s Joint Business Partners and codeshare partners. BA says that OPR will allow them to rebook more customers, lowering their overall journey delay and reducing overnight delays.
It is interesting that the system takes into account the customer’s frequent flyer status and then works out the best rebooking according to a number of business rules set by an airline such as the preferred airlines to rebook on.
Have you had a major disruption with BA since 1 July? Did you notice any difference in the self-service options? Let us know in the comments below.
Cathay Pacific to upgrade The Wing Lounge in Hong Kong
The Pier and The Wing in Hong Kong are some of my favourite lounges in the world. The Pier was renovated fairly recently in 2016 and has the feel of a 5* hotel in most areas (apart from the restaurant) rather than an airport. The restaurant has an extensive table service menu and there are private rooms for first class passengers.
Now The Wing is due to get a makeover. The Wing is known for its amazing private bathroom cabanas, which are even better than you would get in a 5* hotel. Let’s hope they don’t get rid of those as they still look very modern to me.
The airline recently announced a launch HK$100 billion investment over the next seven years in new aircraft, cabins and lounges. The work on the lounge will be done in phases with the First class section closing towards the end of the year. However, they expect that it may take a year or more to reopen fully. The reopening will coincide with the B777-9 launch with their new first class product. I flew Cathay First and although the seat is nothing special currently, it was a wonderful experience.
The business class lounge renovation will start from 2026.
HT: Australia’s Executive Traveller
14 comments
My cancelled AMS-LCY on 22/Jul resulted in MMB saying “call us” and exactly 0 self-serve options. Whilst I held in a queue all the other same-day flights filled up. Ended up on the Eurostar and had to fight BA to pay for it…
17:30 EDI-LHR on 11 August cancelled at 03:30 that morning, rebooked onto 05:55 on 12 August. No options to amend this in MMB, instruction to phone the call centre, but no answer of course. Booked a train instead and waiting for the £220 compensation.
I would guess that’s because there is no alternative airline to Heathrow. Not great though.
What a joke BA are.
Cancelled my Sat 2 Aug flight lhr to EDI and then lied that compensation wasn’t due. I know people in BA who told me the real reason for cancellation.
Then they rebooked me to Edi, flying to Belfast, hotel in Belfast then the next day Belfast to EDI 😂
Total clowns
How many others is this hell happening to
Its ABBA now (anyone but BA)
wow that’s a long detour via Belfast!
We love flying Qatar but wouldn’t want to end up on one of their old 777’s that still have 2-2-2 across in Business. If they’re adding new flights, they may be using more of these older planes, do you know which routes these are being flown on?
They only have four of the old b777s and they definitely don’t use them on premium routes such as London. I’m not sure which routes they are on currently.
In my experience self-service MMB only seems to be able to deal with straightforward flight only ‘cash’ bookings. Avios bookings and anything with hotels or car hire linked to them have referred me to a call centre.
Would be good if they could fix this too.
Thinking about it, perhaps the basic functionality of the website and app needs to be fixed before they start trying to add bells & whistles?!
Ah that makes sense of my experience, although it’s unacceptable. Better website and app would help so much when things go wrong.
In my experience, the BA technology just doesn’t work. On 24 June (before this latest announcement) we spent all night (until after 5am) in a non-moving queue at ATL gate after our 10pm flight to LHR the previous evening got cancelled at 2am (!). MMB kept crashing, as did “chats” with online agents. Turned out we had been rebooked, but only found out when one of the very few people at the gate eventually spoke to us. The “overnight” hotel was pretty woeful. Emails to customer service since then have been completely unhelpful about the misery we encountered.
I had a Amsterdam flight from T5 cancelled 40min before departure last week. Although I had no rebooking option on the app ( couldn’t retrieve my boarding pass either! ). Guest services in the lounge informed me I had been rebooked on a KLM flight departing in 1hr from T4! I made the flight in time and actually landed in Schiphol 10min earlier than my original scheduled BA flight.
So the new system worked out for me on this occasion.
That’s a good example of how it is supposed to work in terms of rebooking but not great on the communication side!
I was delayed on a BA flight from Madrid to LHR in June and missed my BA connection to LAX. When I arrived at Heathrow, I discovered I had automatically been rebooked on a Virgin flight leaving for LAX three hours later. They honored my business class seat; however BA refused to compensate me the miles I would have earned for that flight (which weren’t insignificant given the distance and cabin class).
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