Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER loading up in Doha. Photo by Felix Triller
Last week Qatar and Canada inked an air transport agreement that will allow carriers from each country to serve the other. Apparently. I say apparently because there has been precious little coverage of this in the Canadian media and no official Canadian government website (at the time of writing) has any information about this.
In the wake of the protracted Canada-UAE bilateral saga, speculation was rife that Canada would give Qatar a much more generous allocation than normal. That did not happen. According to the Qatar News Agency the freshly signed agreement will allow Qatar Airways to operate three passenger flights a week as well as three cargo flights. Speculation now shifts to when and where Qatar will land on Canadian soil. There will be speculation that Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto are all in with a shout for passenger service but the smart money – or my money at least – is on Toronto. Given its demographics, commercial strength and large foreign born population it is the easiest win.
With the destination (more than likely) settled it becomes an issue of when Canada could be added. To get the most utility out of the three frequencies, Qatar Airways would have to assign one of their biggest widebody types to the route. A quick scan of their fleet quickly narrows things down. Their A330-300′s don’t have the legs, the A340-600′s are on their way to Aerolineas Argentinas and the 777-200LR’s are fully assigned. This leaves the 777-300ERs but even they don’t appear to have much operational slack. This means that Qatar Airways would either have to cannibalize a pair of 77Ws from an existing route or wait till a couple of additional frames come online. If the latter approach is taken, this route would have to wait till early next year as they will not have enough 77W’s till then. Either way I look forward to seeing them at YYZ.
