Philadelphia: Passengers from the UAE are set to experience the new gateway from Doha to Philadelphia as Qatar Airways launched its inaugural flight to the US city on Wednesday. With flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Doha connecting to the Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Philadelphia at 0105 hrs every day, this new flight will give them a non-stop option from Doha and a morning arrival at 0755 hrs.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker told Gulf News that with this flight, he expects a lot of passengers from the UAE. “It’s just a short flight from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Doha and with the favourable timings and very short transit time, we expect to see a lot of passengers from the UAE take this flight to Philadelphia,” he said.
Al Baker added: “I expect a 40 per cent to 60 per cent ratio of passengers who wish to stop at Philadelphia to those who wish to carry on from there. Philadelphia is strategically located and is the hub of our partner US Airways, so it opens up a whole new avenue for us.”
Qatar Airways operates the Boeing 777 to Philadelphia making the city the fifth US destination after New York, Washington DC, Chicago and Houston with Miami and Dallas being next in line. Al Baker said he expects the number of destinations Qatar Airways will eventually connect worldwide to go up to 800 from its current 137.
“Our relationship with the one-world Alliance means we can reach the whole world now. This alliance is the second largest after Star but soon it will be number one. Passengers can access so many destinations to Africa and with such a large Indian population in the US, they can now travel to 14 Indian cities through our airline. The flight from Philadelphia to Doha is our earliest departure from North America (at 1015 hrs) and provides passengers with unprecedented access to a new schedule of convenient connections to our entire global network,” he said.
Philadelphia is a key destination for business and leisure travellers alike. One of the world’s busiest airports, it sees 30.5 million passengers every year and the number is expected to go up now with this new connection from Doha.
