Qatar Airways boosts business in Australia

Officials at Qatar Airways have held high-level talks with regional government officials in Western Australia aimed at strengthening trade and business relations between the State of Qatar and Western Australia on the back of the newly-launched flights by the airline to Perth. Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker held separate meetings with the Premier of Western Australia, The Honorable Colin Barnett, and the President of the State’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), John Atkins, to discuss new trade, business and investment opportunities between the two countries. The meetings were also attended by HE Qatar’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Australia Yousef Ali Al Khater, Australia’s Ambassador to Qatar Pablo Kang, as well as regional government and airline officials. Qatar Airways launched non-stop flights between Doha and Western Australia’s capital city of Perth on July 3. With return flights to Doha connecting onto a diverse international network of destinations spanning over 100 cities, the people of Perth have a wide choice of travel options to Europe, Africa, Middle East and The Americas. Perth is Australia’s fourth largest city and contains the bulk of Western Australia’s population with 2.4 million people living in and around the city. According to a press release issued by Qatar Airways, Perth economy has been growing rapidly over the past few years, driven by Western Australia’s mining boom and associated industries. The city has also been the fastest growing for more than ten years of any of Australia’s state capitals. Al Baker expressed interest in expanding the airline’s hospitality business to Perth. Acknowledging a shortage of hotel rooms in the city – only 4,000, Al Baker said Perth offered great potential and the airline’s Oryx-branded five-star hotel division, of which there is so far only one property in Doha, would be a good fit for Australia. A second Oryx hotel is currently under construction in Doha. He also announced that Qatar Airways was already preparing to increase passenger capacity to Perth with additional flights introduced in December to make it a daily service. This, he stressed, was indicative of the tremendous amount of faith the airline had in Australia’s mining capital and one of the country’s richest states. For his part, State Premier, The Honorable Colin Barnett, said that Qatar Airways arrival into Perth was a big boost to the city as the additional air capacity not only heightened competition, but also gave both businesses and holidaymakers more choice. He said the wide African network, in particular, offered by Qatar Airways would appeal greatly to the rich mining community of Western Australia, boosting business links with mining centers across the African continent. The Premier said both Qatar and Western Australia shared many similarities in oil and gas exploration, which both were exploiting to their fullest to drive their respective economies. Meanwhile, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) John Atkins said he was delighted that Qatar Airways had entered the Perth market as the new services would benefit not only the people of Western Australia’s capital city, but also the state as a whole. Western Australia has more than 8,000 CCI members, comprising small to large-sized companies across all industries, with mining, energy and tourism among the key sectors. Atkins said the CCI had recently carried out a study on cargo operations from Perth, concluding more freighter capacity was desperately needed to meet the high demand. In addition to the Perth schedules, Qatar Airways also operates daily non-stop scheduled flights between Melbourne and Doha using its signature Boeing 777 long-range aircraft. Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 15 years of operation, currently flying a modern fleet of 109 aircraft to 117 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America. Since the beginning of the year, Qatar Airways has begun services to Baku (Azerbaijan); Tbilisi (Georgia); Zagreb (Croatia), Kigali (Rwanda), Erbil (Iraq), Baghdad (Iraq) and Perth (Australia), with many more new destinations planned during 2012. (QNA)