Qatar Airways restarts direct flights to Auckland

QATAR AIRBUS A350-1041 A7-ANH (MSN 229)

Last Friday Qatar Airways celebrated the return of its longest direct route - Doha (DOH/OTHH) to Auckland (AKL/NZAA). The airline has deployed its Airbus A350-1000 fleet to operate the 16-hour 30-minute journey, which will run on a daily schedule. 

The airline will operate a daily service on the following schedule:

QR920 - Departs Doha at 08:20, arrives in Auckland at 09:15 +1.
QR921 - Departs Auckland at 15:00, arrives in Doha at 23:15.

The aircraft on the inaugural flight was A7-ANM (MSN 350)

The airline's first direct flight from Doha to Auckland since the pandemic successfully touched down Saturday morning, marking the return of Qatar's longest direct route. The flight took off from Doha Hamad International Airport at 09:02, twenty minutes behind its 8:40 departure time, arriving in Auckland Airport at 09:41+1.

The airline hasn't flown direct to Auckland in over three years since suspending services over the COVID pandemic. However, it has continued to provide services to New Zealand's biggest city with stopovers at Brisbane, then Adelaide, which it continued up until August 31st.

After grounding much of its A350 fleet over the pandemic, Qatar Airways has gradually reactivated its widebodies this year. By January 2023, seven of the airline's 19 A350-1000s were listed as parked - having taken delivery of five more this year, all 24 of Qatar's longer A350 variants are in service, with only ten of its -900s still on the ground.