Examined: Qatar Airways’ Australia & New Zealand Network

Oneworld member Qatar Airways is Qatar’s flag carrier, and it is located in the Middle East. However, its ambitious growth plan has seen its rapid growth and extensive international network. Founded 30 years ago, the airline commenced operations on January 20, 1994, and since then, it has grown its fleet to over 250 aircraft and almost 200 international destinations. Fun fact: did you know that the airline does not operate a single domestic flight, given the state of Qatar’s size?

QR has looked not just to its own impressive network for bottom-line growth and investment but also to other airlines and airports to support its success. Between 2015 and today, Qatar Airways has been involved with:

• International Airlines Group—With over 25% of the shares held, this group owns Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus UK, British Airways, BA CityFlyer, BA EuroFlyer, IAG Cargo, Iberia, Iberia Express, LEVEL, Vueling, and Avios Group.
• 60% stake in Rwanda’s new Bugesera International Airport
• 49% state in the flag carrier of Rwanda, Rwandair
• 10% of LATAM Airlines Group
• 9.99% of Cathay Pacific
• Minority shareholder in JSX

Connecting Oceania to the world, Qatar is just one of many carriers cashing in on the lucrative Australian and New Zealand aviation market. Six routes currently operate from its Doha hub. From Hamad International Airport (DOH), the airline currently connects passengers and cargo to Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Simple Flying decided to look a little deeper into the statistics of Qatar’s success down under.

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Qatar Airways connects the world from its Hamad International Airport (DOH) hub.

Australia

Tourists and ex-pats flock to Australia, with its famous beaches and cosmopolitan lifestyle, paired with warm temperatures. It has long been on many travelers’ bucket lists to explore down under. While the vast majority of the population reside in the country’s main cities of Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney, there’s still plenty to see outside the city limits, with the likes of Uluru (Ayres Rock), the Great Barrier Reef, Tasmania and more.

Looking at data from Cirium, an online aviation analytics company, Qatar Airways will operate the frequencies below to these cities for the month of June 2024. For this article, we will focus only on direct services.

Adelaide (ADL)

The capital of South Australia, Adelaide, is home to over 1.3 million people, with a daily flight between Doha and Adelaide International Airport (ADL). Covering 7,030 miles from gate to gate as the crow flies, the route is served by the carrier Boeing 777-300ER, with 10,620 seats available in each direction each month. The airline flies to the below schedule:

Qatar’s services to Australia are bound by a strict agreement with the Australian government. The carrier is limited to 28 weekly roundtrip flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. However, it can circumvent this by operating ‘ghost flights’ to other uncapped cities, such as Adelaide. Realistically, because of this, Adelaide is served double daily. However, the second service requires an undesirable layover in Melbourne; read more about it below:

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Brisbane (BNE)

Australia’s newest destination is served by Qatar Airways. The service was launched during the pandemic of all times and provided a feeder service in Auckland, New Zealand. Today, the service operates daily onboard a Boeing 777-300ER. The link is 7,660 miles as the crow flies and provides 10,620 monthly seats. Brisbane is the main gateway to the state of Queensland, with easy domestic connections to the likes of Cairns, which is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, or jump in a rental car or train and head towards the Sunshine Coast, Bundaberg, or Rockhampton in the north.

If you head south, you will reach the Gold Coast, a popular family holiday destination with a number of theme parks and nature walks. Travelers flying into Brisbane also use this airport to head towards northern New South Wales, with the state border only 68 miles south. Currently, Qatar Airways operates the below schedule to Brisbane:

Melbourne (MEL)

Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria, is expected to overtake Sydney as the largest city in Australia by 2031. It is renowned for its cute laneways, great coffee, and artistic alleyways. The gateway to the Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, has long been high on travelers’ wish lists. Melbourne Tullamarine Airport (MEL) is well connected internationally, with a long list of destinations across New Zealand, Asia, China, the United States, and the Middle East on offer. However, Qatar Airways service to Melbourne was the airline’s first foray into the Australian market, commencing services to the city in 2009.

The state of Victoria remains the only Australian destination in its network that is served double daily through the loophole it has established with its onward service to Adelaide. With 21,240 seats in each direction monthly, the distance between DOH and MEL is 7,424 miles as the crow flies. The schedule is laid out below:

Perth (PER)

The principal gateway to Western Australia, a vast state of over 1.55 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers), is equivalent to the size of Western Europe and covers one-third of Australia’s landmass. However, this great state is home to a population of around 2.66 million inhabitants, of which almost two million reside in Perth.

Perth International Airport is located just nine miles from the city center and is the main access point for services throughout the wider state. The airport remains busy with FIFO (Fly-in-fly-out) services to many of the mines within the region, an integral part of the WA economy. For Qatar Airways, its double-decker is deployed on the route, serving Perth daily with its Airbus A380-800 aircraft. 15,510 seats are on offer each month, connecting the two ports at a distance of just 5,788 miles, the shortest route for the carrier to Australia. Schedule as below:

Photo: Seth Jaworski | Shutterstock

Sydney (SYD)

Sydney is the heart of New South Wales, Australia’s largest city by population. Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD) is the busiest airport in Australia and the second destination to which Qatar Airways deploys the Airbus A380. Served daily, the two ports are 7,686 miles apart and receive 15,510 seats each way per month.

Arriving at Sydney Airport and traveling into the city is easy because of several trains, buses, shuttles, and car rental opportunities. Those looking to head to the outer cities of Penrith, Wagga Wagga, or Newcastle can all easily be made by train or on the extensive number of motorways and tunnels that wind their way across the city. QR follows this schedule:

Sydney has a population of over 5.2 million, and Qatar Airways started serving the route in March 2016. It competed with Emirates and Etihad, which had already connected their respective hubs to New South Wales for almost a decade before QR made its debut.

New Zealand

Aotearoa translates to the ‘land of the long white cloud,’ a name bestowed upon the country by Indigenous Maori. New Zealand is fortunate enough to welcome Qatar Airways and Emirates to its shores in the Middle East. Qatar Airways operates solely in Auckland and operates its longest flight in its network to the isolated South Pacific country.

Auckland (AKL)

Auckland to Doha is the third longest route by ‘great circle distance’ currently in operation and sits only behind Singapore Airlines’ direct links from Singapore (SIN) to both Newark (EWR) and New York (JFK). It is the only route in Qatar’s Australasian network which features the Airbus A350-1000 aircraft. Services are operated daily, non-stop.

With 9,011 miles between Doha and Auckland, it unsurprisingly wins the award for the longest route in this list and provides 9,810 seats each month between the two centers. Qatar Airways first launched its connection to Auckland in December 2016 and only briefly paused its non-stop service during the pandemic, which saw it re-routed via Brisbane and then Adelaide (more about that later on). QR currently operates the below schedule to the ‘City of Sails’:

Historical routes

Qatar Airways’ robust Australian network continues to be limited by flight caps, which the airline continues to fight. QR has previously operated a number of services to the region, with one proving unsuccessful, while the other was operated during subdued demand post-pandemic. Look into the details below. Could we see if these ever return?

Doha to Canberra

Another tactic by QR to get around the strict operational caps to Australia’s main airport, Canberra, was once served by Qatar as an add-on from Sydney. Then, this was transitioned to Melbourne pre-pandemic. Reports have stated that during its time on the route, some flights operated at just 12% of overall capacity, proving that the market was not stimulated enough for the services to remain viable. During QR’s tenure at Canberra Airport, it deployed the 777 and A350-1000 from the city.

As reported by Simple Flying back in 2022, after the pandemic, the Melbourne Canberra service resumption had been proposed with an eye-watering arrival time into the country’s capital airport; schedule below:

• Doha to Melbourne: QR988, 01:30-23:05
• Melbourne to Canberra: QR988, 01:05-02:20
• Canberra to Melbourne: QR989, 13:00-14:15
• Melbourne to Doha: QR989, 1615-22:40

Canberra has long cried out for more international services and, unfortunately, has been unable to stimulate a successful long-term long-haul service. Singapore Airlines also once connected Singapore to Canberra, with onward connections to Wellington, dubbed the capital connection. However, now the only international services are with Fiji Airways (Nadi) and Batik Air, which will launch services to Bali on June 14.

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Batik’s robust network from Bali will also offer a springboard for further flights into Asia for intrepid Australians.

Adelaide to Auckland

The final route analyzed is the historical trans-Tasman service that once connected Adelaide to Auckland. This service was introduced as an interim measure following the COVID-19 pandemic and operated thrice weekly as a fifth freedom service. This allowed Qatar to see tickets on all sectors of this route individually. This was the first time first class was available directly between Adelaide and Auckland. The airline operated the schedule as:

Qatar Airways axed this unique service in September 2023 when the airline relaunched its direct long-haul service to Auckland. Demand for international service was sufficient to relaunch the carrier’s longest route.

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