Qatar Airways start new flights to Bangalore

Qatar Airways on Wednesday embarked on its 2010 global expansion programme with the launch of scheduled flights to the southern Indian city of Bengaluru formerly Bangalore.Flight QR226 arrived in the country's IT capital city dubbed India's Silicon Valley in the early hours of Tuesday morning following its maiden non stop overnight journey from the airline's hub of Doha, capital of Qatar.

Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, becomes the first of several new route launches planned by Qatar Airways this year.Scheduled flights are set to be introduced to Copenhagen on March 30; Ankara on April 5; Tokyo on April 26; Barcelona on June 7 and Sydney at a date to be confirmed, together with a raft of capacity increases on many other routes worldwide.The launch of daily flights to Bengaluru takes Qatar Airways' Indian capacity up to 71 services a week to 11 key cities Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Cochin, Kozhikode, Goa and Amritsar.

Home to India's largest IT software industry, Bengaluru also has some of the country's most affluent colleges and research institutions with numerous public sector companies across the aerospace, telecommunications and defence industries.With excellent connections from Europe, Middle East, Africa and the United States, the new route is expected to be popular among expatriates returning to Bengaluru and the international business community having strong commercial links with the city.Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said it was only a matter of time before Bengaluru became part of the carrier's expanding family of routes in India which he described as one of the airline's most strategic markets.

I am delighted that Bengaluru has finally joined our rapidly growing international network, which further demonstrates our commitment to give the travelling public greater choice, he said.
This new strategic air link fosters a stronger partnership between India and the state of Qatar and further provides excellent connectivity through our flights to the rest of the world via Doha.Bengaluru has been at the heart of India's software industry for years, enabling it to capitalise on establishing commercial and social ties with cities around the world, including its US west coast counterpart, San Francisco.With codeshare flights operated by partner carrier United Airlines, Qatar Airways provides convenient connections to many cities across the US, including San Francisco.