Qatar Airways to launch flights to Mozambique

Qatar Airways on Wednesday announced a further expansion of its African operations with plans to launch flights to Mozambique. Effective from October 31, the thrice-weekly flights will operate from Doha to Mozambique s capital city of Maputo via Johannesburg, becoming the 20th African destination served by the airline. Mozambique becomes Qatar Airways  fourth new route across the African continent to be launched during 2012, the carrier said in a statement. The Maputo service will be operated by the airline s flagship long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft. In Africa alone this year, Qatar Airways has pursued its strategy aggressively of focusing on underserved markets. The carrier recently launched daily scheduled services from its Doha hub to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda in east Africa. On July 25, Qatar Airways will start daily operations to Kilimanjaro, the airline s second Tanzanian gateway, followed on August 15 by the introduction of daily flights to Mombasa, its second point in Kenya. Last year, Africa secured two new Qatar Airways routes   Benghazi in Libya and the Ugandan city of Entebbe. Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways CEO, said "This truly is the year of an African adventure for Qatar Airways with the introduction of four new routes on this Continent of diverse landscapes, diverse peoples, diverse cultures and diverse natural attractions. "Mozambique is a great example of a market that we believe has great potential linking up with key feeder markets in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world." Qatar Airways operates a fleet of 109 aircraft to 116 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America. Since the beginning of the year, aside from the launch of flights to Kigali, Qatar Airways has begun services to Baku (Azerbaijan); Tbilisi (Georgia); Zagreb (Croatia), Erbil (Iraq) and Baghdad (Iraq). Over the next few months, aside from Kilimanjaro and Mombasa, Qatar Airways will launch services to Perth, Australia (July 3); Yangon, Myanmar (October 3) and a date yet-to-be-announced to the Serbian capital Belgrade.