Tnn & ageNcies
Doha
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker has revealed that the airline may increase the number of routes to 190 from the 177 currently, but its ability to do so depends on the delivery of additional aircraft.
“We could add maybe 85 or 90 destinations depending on the aircraft deliveries,” Al Baker told reporters at a press conference during the Arabian Travel Market conference in Dubai.
The airline expects planemakers Boeing and Airbus to begin delivering soon, he said.
Previously he said delivery delays had prompted the airline to make conservative growth plans.
High energy prices have not dented passenger demand for travel at Qatar Airways, where load factors, a measure of capacity utilisation, are in the “high 80s”, Al Baker told reporters.
The airline spent $2.4 billion more than it had budgeted on fuel in 2022, he said. It had taken steps to shield customers from higher energy prices, but warned that it is “not an unlimited cushion”.
Al Baker said the carrier was “fighting with oil companies” to scale up the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in order to bring the price down to affordable levels.
The airline aims to adopt the fuel, which has the potential to reduce its carbon footprint, or to use it in combination with conventional fuel.
Al Baker said he looked forward to cooperating with Riyadh Air, Saudi Arabia’s newly announced national airline, which aims to compete head-to-head with regional carriers like Qatar Airways.
“There is a lot of business around for everybody... We will cooperate with them and support them,” he said.
He later told reporters that Qatar Airways could pursue codeshares or exchanges of technical assistance with the new airline.
