Qatar Airways CEO says Auckland to remain most easterly port
By Andrew Curran.
Qatar Airways has no plans to expand further east into the South Pacific beyond Auckland, with its CEO saying a lack of suitable aircraft, small markets, high fuel costs, and expansion priorities elsewhere rule it out in the short to medium term.
“We’re (always) scanning the environment, but it’s not on the immediate horizon right now,” Hamad Al-Khater told Aero South Pacific in Sydney last weekend.
Auckland (AKL), more than 18 hours’ flying time from Qatar’s Doha hub, is the most easterly airport served by the carrier. San Francisco (SFO) is its most westerly destination. Between them lie the Pacific Ocean and markets such as Hawaii, French Polynesia, Fiji and New Caledonia.
Similarly, no other Gulf carrier, including Emirates and Etihad, operates into these markets.
Al-Khater says expansion would depend on having aircraft capable of covering the distances and then generating sufficient demand to fill them.
“Once we get a further array of ultra-long-haul widebodies, including the B777-9, we’d be able to, but it’s really a question of demand,” he said. “It’s economics.”
The CEO says that while fuel costs remain high, entering marginal and untested markets such as Fiji and French Polynesia becomes “less attractive in the short term”.
He notes the presence of oneworld partner airlines in the region, including Qantas and Fiji Airways. However, Al-Khater describes Virgin Australia, in which Qatar Airways holds a minority stake, as its “cornerstone” partner in the region, with whom his airline has an “outstanding partnership”.
“There’s continuous engagement,” he said of Qatar’s relationship with Qantas and other oneworld carriers. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Hamad Al-Khater in Sydney last weekend.
More aircraft coming but network development priorities lie elsewhere
Qatar Airways is expecting 15 aircraft deliveries over the next 12 months, starting with A321-200NXs by the end of the year, followed by A350-1000s towards the middle of 2027. The delivery date for Qatar Airways’ first B777-9 remains unconfirmed.
“Fingers crossed [about] the fabled B777-9,” Al-Khater said.
Flying the most efficient routing, both the A350-900 and B777-9 have the range to reach airports such as Nadi (NAN) and Nouméa (NOU) from Doha in a single hop. However, even if the economics stacked up, Al-Khater says his team is working on other markets, including China, Africa and South America.
“China and Africa, for example, are imperatively important markets that are growing pretty fast,” he said. “These are key markets we want to focus on before expanding further.”
Earlier this month, the acting managing director and CEO of Papua New Guinea’s National Airports Corporation (NAC) acknowledged that emerging markets need to build passenger volumes before airlines will serve them.
“Everyone wants international flights,” Dominic Kaumu told a tourism conference recently. “But we don’t have the volume. We’ve got to build volumes because airlines cannot fly with empty seats.”
As a result, only three foreign airlines - Qantas, Philippine Airlines and China Southern, regularly fly into the country.
Al-Khater says his team works with authorities in specific countries, including airports and tourism bodies, “to see how things can develop”. He says a destination needs to demonstrate that it can generate value for the airline before Qatar will consider flying there.
“We find that sweet spot, that Goldilocks zone of flying, and then we make a decision to fly.”
Photo: Airbus
Contact the writer: andrew@aerosouthpacific.com