Qatar Airways today (Wednesday) announced the introduction of a fourth daily non-stop flight between Doha and London Heathrow taking the airline’s capacity between Qatar and the UK up to 42 services a week.

The new late-afternoon flight will start operation from March 30. Its departure timing from Doha offers passengers more choice to the early morning and lunchtime flights to Britain’s busiest airport, said a airline official.

'Flight QR017 departs Doha every day at 1635hrs, arriving at London Heathrow at 2200 hrs. The return flight QR018 departs London Heathrow at 0755 hrs, returning to Doha at 1650 hrs. The flight will be operated with an Airbus A330 aircraft in a three-class configuration of up to 12 seats in First, 24 in Business and 223 in Economy,' said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker.

'Every passenger in all cabins will be able to take advantage of the airline’s fully interactive in-flight entertainment system in each seat offering a multitude of audio and video options to choose from. Furthermore, there is a live television option enabling passengers to choose from a variety of live TV programming,' he added.

Qatar Airways currently operates three flights a day to London Heathrow, and daily to both London Gatwick and Manchester with a total capacity of 35 weekly services.

The UK expansion announcement coincided with the 'Business Travel Show' taking place in London this week where Qatar Airways is participating with a dedicated exhibition stand.

Al Baker said London Heathrow had been the airline’s flagship route for many years, and stressed the importance of serving the British capital with more frequencies to give travellers more choice.

“We are delighted to be adding capacity on what is an extremely popular route with both business and leisure travellers,” he said.

“By launching a new early evening flight to London Heathrow from the start of the summer schedules, business travellers can spend a whole working day in Qatar before catching their flight. Passengers from London can take advantage of our first morning departure from London Heathrow and connect onto a choice of many flights to exciting destinations in Doha.”

Qatar Airways currently operates a modern fleet of 60 Airbus and Boeing aircraft to 81 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Indian Subcontinent, Far East and North America from Doha, the airline’s hub and capital of the State of Qatar.-TradeArabia News Service