Qatar Airways has announced that it will expand its network by flying to Chiang Mai, Thailand, from December 16.
The Doha-based carrier will operate services to Chiang Mai five times a week via Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar, with an A330-200.
The largest and most culturally significant city in northern Thailand, Chiang Mai will be the fourth city in the Asian country to be served by Qatar Airways, which currently flies to Bangkok and Phuket and will commence flights to Krabi on December 6.
With the addition of Krabi and Chiang Mai to its network, Qatar Airways will increase its flights to Thailand from 39 to 48 per week by the end of 2016, the airline has said in a statement.
Marwan Koleilat, Qatar Airways senior vice-president (East Asia & South West Pacific), said: “As we are constantly expanding our network in Southeast Asia, the popular tourist destination of Thailand is an obvious target for growth. We have seen increased travel demand for our services to Thailand and now, with the introduction of our award-winning product to popular secondary cities such as Chiang Mai and Krabi, we provide overseas visitors and tour operators with greater flexibility and ease of travel when designing their Thailand holiday itineraries.”
The flight schedule is as follows: QR918 departing Doha at 2.30am and arriving in Chiang Mai at 2.55pm, and QR919 departing Chiang Mai at 4.45pm and arriving in Doha at 10.15pm.
The launch of flights to Chiang Mai comes at a time when Qatar Airways is “rapidly expanding its network and will inaugurate 14 new destinations on its route map throughout 2016 and into early 2017”, the statement notes.
New destination launches include Marrakech (July 1), Pisa (August 2), Windhoek (September 28), Helsinki (October 10) Sarajevo (November 2), Seychelles (December 12), Auckland (February 6, 2017), Skopje (2017), Libreville (2017), Douala (2017), Lusaka (summer 2017) and Nice (summer 2017).