In the last financial year, Qatar Airways added seven new aircraft to its fleet, which included two cargo aircraft and five Qatar Executive jets
Qatar Airways has more than 250 aircraft worth over $72.12bn still on order including options and letters of intent, the national airline said in its annual report for 2021/22, which was released on Thursday.
In January this year, Qatar Airways announced a new order of up to 50 Boeing 777-8 freighters and two current generation 777 freighters, securing “ambitious plans” for the future of its cargo operations.
Qatar Airways and Boeing also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a firm order of 25 737-10 aircraft and purchase rights for 25 additional airplanes, the report said.
In June last year, Qatar Airways introduced the latest generation Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, featuring an ultra-modern business class suite, with a total passenger capacity of 311 seats; 30 business class suites and 281 seats in economy.
In the last financial year, Qatar Airways added seven new aircraft to its fleet, which included two cargo aircraft and five Qatar Executive jets (as on March 31, 2022).
Qatar Airways’ "strategic" investment in a mix of modern, fuel-efficient aircraft has enabled it to provide agile responses and embrace every challenge, by offering the right capacity in each market to meet the increased passenger and cargo demand with great flexibility.
During the financial year 2021/2022, Qatar Airways said it “faced considerable capacity limitations, due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the group’s control.”
The report said, “These capacity constraints were partially addressed through a number of different steps to balance commercial needs as swiftly as possible.”
The airline brought back in to service four of the 10 Airbus A380 in order to increase the fleet capacity on key winter routes including London Heathrow and Paris.
The national airline also re-introduced 14 of its A330 fleet to address the continued increase in capacity requirements due to the easing of travel restrictions during the peak of winter holiday period.
Qatar Airways Cargo has maintained its position as the world’s largest air freight carrier, injecting much needed capacity in the market helping support global supply chains at a critical time during the pandemic.
“The airline’s foresight and strategic investment in a varied fleet has enabled us to become highly flexible and non-reliant on a specific aircraft type. As a global airline we adapted our network to serve passenger demand and increase the sustainability of the operations,” the annual report noted.