Qatar Airways to start daily flights to Indian city of Kolkata

Mumbai: Qatar Airways Thursday said it will start daily flights to the Indian city of Kolkata from July 27 as part of its global network expansion strategy. 

The airline had in September, 2010 raised operations in India's fast-growing aviation market by a fifth from 56 services each week, by adding more flights to Delhi, Kochi and Amritsar from Doha. 

Qatar Airways, during its previous network expansion plan announcement in August, said India accounted for 10 per cent of its international network in terms of number of flights. 

The airline will now have 95 weekly operations in 12 cities, including Kolkata, in the country. 

As part of its global network expansion, it will start four weekly flights to Bulgarian capital, Sofia, from September 14 and five weekly flights to the Norwegian capital of Oslo from October 5, it said. 

The carrier will also increase the number of flights to cities such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dar Es Salaam, Manchester, Geneva, Seychelles, Copenhagen, Munich and Frankfurt over the year, an airline spokesman added. 

It plans to take its fleetsize to 120 planes and expand its network to 120 destinations by 2013 from a fleet of 94 planes and 99 cities worldwide.