The Hindu Business Line : Qatar Air operating at full capacity

THOUGH the capacity addition under the Government's limited open sky policy has brought down fares and improved availability of seats during the peak winter season for the first time in many years, it does not seem to have upset the appetite of most service providers, and certainly not of Qatar Airways, which increased its frequencies to 51 weekly services from 19 earlier.

The Chief Executive Officer of Qatar Airways, Mr Akbar Al Baker, told Business Line that all its flights were going full and the airline would look forward to operating as many additional flights if not more next winter.

The airline would revert to its regular schedule of 19 flights on April 1, when the limited open sky policy would end, he said.

Though India remained an important market for it and Qatar Airways was in talks to expand its network of destinations in the country, he said the revenues garnered from the Indian operations were not as high as perceived.

Without mentioning the numbers, he said the revenue figures from India were not exactly "exciting". The airline was continuing to recruit Indian staff at all levels.

The airline, which renewed its contract for revenue accounting with Kale Consultants recently, would continue to outsource more IT services from India. Though the airline had been late in implementing e-ticketing, it would soon go online with this. Qatar Airways was also working with IATA to introduce ticket-less travel by 2007, he said.

The hike in fuel costs had added a negative amount of $60 million to the carrier's bottomline. Though the airline was keen to hedge its fuel requirements in the global market, he said, this was not the right time to do so. However, the airline has recorded a higher yield per passenger, with revenue growth of 2 percentage points more than the growth in the number of passengers.

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