BERLIN - Qatar Airways has announced that it will significantly increase the airline’s frequencies to Germany and other European destinations this year, as it prepares to start a new non-stop service to Zurich in July.

Qatar Airways’ Chief Executive Officer Mr Al Baker announced today at the ITB Berlin travel exhibition that the airline has recently increased combined frequencies to Frankfurt and Munich by four flights a week, to meet rising demand for Qatar Airways’ services from the German market.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to the German market we have recently added two additional frequencies to each of our services to Munich and Frankfurt,” said Mr Al Baker.

“This means we’re now flying to Munich five times a week and to Frankfurt six times per week, connecting with Germany eleven times per week.

“We are also adding frequencies to other destinations in our growing European network.

“We have recently increased our frequencies to Vienna by two flights per week, flying to the Austrian capital five times each week.

“Qatar Airways will also be adding an additional frequency to Paris to fly daily non-stop from June 1.

“From July 8 we will also be starting our non-stop service to Zurich. This will be a four-times-a-week service that will use our long range A319, and give people in Switzerland easy access to the rest of our network.

“With the new frequencies we are touching down at one of our nine European destinations 50 times each week. After adding Zurich to our route network, we will be flying to a European city 54 times per week,” said Mr Al Baker.

The new frequencies and the addition of Zurich to our growing network, is in direct response to the demand that Qatar Airways is receiving from Europe for connections to the Far East, the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East.

“Both the German and the Austrian destinations have also proved very popular with passengers from the Far East and Middle East, who visit the respective cities for both pleasure and business,” said Mr Al Baker.

“We’re also seeing a strong trend for more and more Europeans to visit Qatar. They are now realising that Qatar is an exciting destination in its own right,” he said.

The new frequencies occur at the same time that Qatar Airways begins taking delivery of a $5.1 billion order for 34 aircraft during the next several years. In this year alone, the airline will take delivery of 13 new Airbus aircraft which will swell its exclusively-Airbus fleet to 38 by year-end.

“Receiving thirteen new aircraft this year, a virtually unprecedented delivery for an airline of our size, means that we can increase frequencies to our existing destinations and inaugurate new destinations.

“We have already announced the new destinations of Luxor, Istanbul, Zurich and Kabul for this year, and are looking into developing further new routes in the near future.

“It is our ambition to be the world’s best airline, and to provide the best possible service to all our passengers. Although we are rapidly expanding in order to provide more services, we are not losing sight of our vision to provide a consistently superior service,” Mr. Al Baker said.