Qatar Airways bolsters connectivity in Canada with announcement of daily flights to Montreal

Qatar Airways has announced it will begin incrementally increasing flights to Montréal from 16 January 2021 and operate daily frequencies by 25 February 2021, up from the previously scheduled four weekly frequencies. The Montréal service is operated by Qatar Airways’ state-of-the-art Airbus A350-900 featuring 36 seats in the award-winning Qsuite Business Class and 247 seats in Economy Class.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are delighted to increase our services to Montréal, further enhancing connectivity for our Canadian customers, while offering our passengers traveling to and from North America seamless access to more than 75 destinations in Africa, Asia, India and the Middle East via our multiple award winning hub, Hamad International Airport.

“We remain committed to serving our customers in Canada and have worked hard throughout the pandemic to ensure we can operate as many flights as possible, in line with the directions of the Canadian government. From operating special charter services to a number of commercial flights, we are delighted to now offer a strong schedule of services, complemented by our recently announced partnership with Air Canada.”

Ambassador of Canada to Qatar, Her Excellency Ambassador Stefanie McCollum, said: “I am thrilled by these recent developments and the expanded connectivity to Canada.  These additional flights will give travellers more opportunities to discover Canada and all that it has to offer.  Our high quality education and safe cities are attractive to international students, and now their parents will have more options to visit and explore our beautiful and welcoming country.  It will now be easier for those looking to expand their business or investment in Canada to connect via these flights, and we hope they too will take advantage of the amazing tourism options that await them.”     

This news comes on the heels of the announcement of Qatar Airways’ recent codeshare agreement with Air Canada, applicable to flights between Toronto and Doha. The agreement will enable both airlines’ passengers to enjoy seamless, one-stop connections to and from Toronto via the Best Airport in the Middle East, Hamad International Airport and onwards to more than 75 destinations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This is just one way Qatar Airways is reinforcing its commitment to Canadian passengers and travel trade and boosting Canada’s global connectivity to support the recovery of tourism and trade.

Qatar Airways first began flights to Canada in June 2011 with three weekly flights to Montréal that expanded to four weekly in December 2018. After working closely with the Government of Canada and its embassies around the globe throughout the pandemic, Qatar Airways temporarily operated three weekly services to Toronto in addition to multiple charter flights to Vancouver to help bring home more than 44,000 Canadian residents. 

Qatar Airways strategic investment in a variety of fuel-efficient twin-engine aircraft, including the largest fleet of Airbus A350 aircraft, has enabled it to continue flying throughout this crisis and perfectly positions it to lead the sustainable recovery of international travel. The airline recently took delivery of three new state-of-the-art Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, increasing its total A350 fleet to 52 with an average age of just 2.6 years. Due to COVID-19’s impact on travel demand, the airline has grounded its fleet of Airbus A380s as it is not environmentally justifiable to operate such a large, four-engine aircraft in the current market. Qatar Airways has also recently launched a new program that enables passengers to voluntarily offset the carbon emissions associated with their journey at the point of booking.

Due to COVID-19’s impact on travel demand, the airline has grounded its fleet of Airbus A380s as it is not environmentally justifiable to operate such a large, four-engine aircraft in the current market. The airline’s internal benchmark compared the A380 to the A350 on routes from Doha to London, Guangzhou, Frankfurt, Paris, Melbourne, Sydney and New York. On a typical one-way flight, the airline found the A350 aircraft saved a minimum of 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per block hour compared to the A380. The analysis found that the A380 emitted over 80% more CO2 per block hour than the A350 on each of these routes. In the cases of Melbourne and New York, the A380 emitted 95% more CO2 per block hour with the A350 saving around 20 tonnes of CO2 per block hour. Until passenger demand recovers to appropriate levels, Qatar Airways will continue to keep its A380 aircraft grounded, ensuring it only operates commercially and environmentally responsible aircraft.