Qatar Airways to fly to Miami from June 2014

by Devesh Agarwal

Image courtesy Qatar Airways

Flag carrier, Qatar Airways, has announced Miami to be its sixth destination in the United States with flights beginning June 10, 2014.

The airline will offer four non-stop flights a week from Doha using a Boeing 777-200LR aircraft in a two class configuration with 42 lie-flat seats in business class, and 217 seats in economy.

The proposed schedule dove-tails well with flights to the Indian sub-continent, which arrive in to Doha early morning, and depart at night.

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
QR777 departs Doha 08:40 (8:40am) arrives Miami MIA 17:20 (5:20pm). Travel time: 15h40m.
QR778 departs Miami 21:15 (9:15pm) arrives Doha 18:20 (6:20pm) the next day. Travel time: 14h20m.

As it prepares to enter the oneworld alliance, this is a good move by Qatar Airways as Miami is the gateway to Latin America for oneworld original member American Airlines. Qatar already operates to American's hub in Chicago, and to Houston, New York (JFK), and Washington D.C. (Dulles), and will add Philadelphia in April 2014.

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Emirates to launch Taipei flights

by BA Staff

Dubai-based Emirates has will commence a new six times a week to Taipei from its global hub at Dubai.

The airline will use a 354-seat Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a 3-class configuration (8F / 42J / 304Y).

Taipei is the carrier's 16th destination in the Far East.

Barry Brown, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President Commercial Operations East.

"Emirates SkyCargo has operated a dedicated freighter service to Taipei since 2003. Given its status as a global trading hub and the demand, it is a natural progression for Emirates to launch passenger services to Taipei,”

The flight schedules though, are a little unusual. The arrivals in to Taipei vary by day of the week, but the return flight is fixed for an early morning arrival in to Dubai, quite obviously to allow passengers connections to other Emirates' destinations and improve access to Taiwan from other parts of the Emirates network, especially Africa.

EK366 DXB 0020 – 1205TPE 77W 6
EK366 DXB 0225 – 1430TPE 77W 3
EK366 DXB 0340 – 1525TPE 77W 7
EK366 DXB 0425 – 1615TPE 77W 124
EK367 TPE  2315 – 0510+1DXB 77W x5

Emirates has previously announced plans to launch services to Stockholm starting 4th September, to Clark International Airport in the Philippines and the transatlantic Milan-New York route on 1st October; Conakry on 27th October, Sialkot, Pakistan on 5th November and Kiev, Ukraine on 16th January 2014.

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Pakistan International Airlines cancels Frankfurt and Amsterdam

A PIA Airbus A310 at Leeds Bradford - Image Credit: Mark Winterbourne

According to the Airline Route blog, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will be cancelling its twice weekly
services to Amsterdam and Frankfurt from 7th September. One flight per week is served as a triangular routing Lahore-Amsterdam-Frankfurt-Lahore on Fridays utilizing one of PIA's 12 Airbus A310-300 aircraft, while the other weekly flight is routed Islamabad -Frankfurt-Amsterdam-Islamabad on Tuesdays, also using Airbus A310s.

PIA has been serving Amsterdam and Frankfurt on-and-off since the early 1970s, and at one point had flights between Frankfurt and New York JFK.

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127 feared dead as Bhoja Airlines Boeing 737 crashes near Islamabad Pakistan

All 127 people, 118 passengers and nine crew, on board a Bhoja Air flight are feared dead in a crash near the national capital of Islamabad in Pakistan. Bhoja flight B4-213 had departed from the commercial capital of Pakistan, Karachi.

There was severe weather in the area of the crash. The aircraft last made contact around 18:20 local (13:20Z) and reportedly crashed at 18:40 local in a residential area around Hussain Abad village near Rawalpindi, 5nm from Islamabad airport

Rescue teams have been dispatched to the scene.

Bhoja Air has commenced operations just a few days ago. The aircraft, The aircraft was Boeing 737-236 advanced, registration AP-BKD, line number 635, was built in 1980, had its first flight on February 13, 1980. The aircraft was delivered to British Airways as G-BGDD on February 23, 1980. It was delivered to Bhoja Air, February 24, 2012.

This is the second crash in less than two years. In July 2010, an Airbus A321 operated by Airblue crashed into hills overlooking Islamabad, killing 152 people on board.

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