With barely more than a week of May left, the summer season is fast approaching. As such, Middle Eastern carrier Qatar Airways has announced that it will be upping its schedules on its route between its Doha hub and Miami, Florida. As of next month, the Qatari flag carrier will now be flying to South Florida's main airport three times a week.
Three rotations a week
A quick look at Qatar Airways' online timetable shows that the carrier is presently flying between Doha Hamad International (DOH) and Miami International (MIA). The outbound flight (QR777) leaves Doha on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 07:50 local time. After 15 hours and 45 minutes in the air, it touches down in Miami at 16:35. There, it has a 3.5-hour turnaround.
Following this, flight QR778 returns to Doha at 20:05 local time every Tuesday and Thursday. The return flight is noticeably shorter, clocking in at 14 hours and 5 minutes. This gives an arrival time of 17:10 back in Doha the following evening.
However, as of June 12th, Qatar Airways will be adding an additional weekly rotation to the sunshine state. This will see QR777 and QR778's operating days shifted from Tuesday and Thursday to Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. However, their times will remain the same. The timetable shows that the aircraft used will be the Boeing 777-300ER.
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A monopoly on the route
Qatar Airways is very well-placed to increase its service frequency between Doha and Miami. While the current circumstances make these things difficult to predict, the summer season does typically represents one of the busier times of year for airlines. As such, the carrier is clearly confident that the demand will be sufficient for the increased schedule.
Furthermore, Qatar Airways is the only airline to fly directly between Doha and Miami. This monopoly gives it a strong and well-recognized presence in the route that could prove tricky for another carrier to penetrate if it wanted a share of the market. Similarly, Qatar Airways Cargo is the only carrier that flies airfreight between these two destinations.
Qatar Airways' Boeing 777s
As seen in the earlier tweet, Qatar Airways will be deploying its Boeing 777s on its enhanced Doha-Miami summer timetable. These are, as it proudly describes, "the airline’s largest twin-engine aircraft." According to ch-aviation, Qatar Airways flies two passenger-carrying variants of the 'triple-seven,' namely the 777-200LR and the 777-300ER.
In terms of the respective popularities of these models at the airline, the larger 777-300ER is by far Qatar Airways' preferred option. It presently has 48 of these in its fleet, compared to just nine examples of the smaller 777-200LR. There is also a conspicuous age difference, with the 777-200LRs averaging out at 11.3 years old, compared to just 7.5 for the -300ER.
What do you make of Qatar Airways' planned frequency increase between Doha and Miami? Have you ever flown on this route before, or perhaps you plan on doing so in the future? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments.