Qatar Airways

• 1. Introduction

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  Qatar Airways is the flag carrier of the State of Qatar. On the 12th of October 2009, one of its Airbus A340-600 jets left London Gatwick Airport bound for Doha. It burned a blend of ordinary kerosene and synthetic fuel refined from natural gas. No commercial passenger flight had used that blend before. Qatar was already the world's leading exporter of natural gas, and some experts doubted the fuel would ever be more than a marginal experiment, given how expensive it was to produce.

  That flight came fifteen years after the airline started flying with a staff of just seventy five people and two secondhand jets. How did such a small carrier grow into a network running more than two hundred aircraft and employing over forty three thousand people? Who controls the airline today? The carrier brands itself with the slogan Going Places Together. Yet it has drawn accusations of underpaying its crews, of feuding with its own alliance partners, and of funnelling bribes to officials in Europe.

• 2. A Contested Birth

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  From 1974 until May 2002, Qatar held a joint stake in Gulf Air alongside Oman, the UAE state of Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. Qatar was the first of the three partner governments to announce it was leaving, yet it stayed on as a member of Gulf Air for six more months after that announcement.

  The government moved to build its own carrier before that split was final. Qatar Airways was established on the 22nd of November 1993, and operations began on the 20th of January 1994. Amman became the airline's first destination that May. By April 1995, chief executive Sheikh Hamad Bin Ali Bin Jabor Al Thani ran a staff of just seventy five people. The fleet at that point consisted of two Airbus A310s, flying to Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Cairo, Dubai, Khartoum, Kuwait, Madras, Manila, Muscat, Sharjah, Taipei, Tokyo and Trivandrum.

  During 1995 the airline bought two secondhand Boeing 747s that had previously flown for All Nippon Airways. In 1996 it added a secondhand Boeing 747SP purchased from Air Mauritius. By late 1996 the carrier had dropped service to Athens, Istanbul, Madras and Tunis. Calcutta followed in January 1997, and Muscat in September of that year. London flights launched in 1997 too. That same year the airline leased two secondhand Airbus A300-600R jets, each seating 231 passengers, from Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services. A new logo debuted alongside those aircraft, and a third leased A300-600R joined the fleet soon after.

  In July 1998, Qatar Airways placed a firm order with Airbus for six A320s, due between 2001 and 2005, with options on five more. That same year it struck a lease deal with Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise for four more A320s, meant to replace its ageing Boeing 727-200 Advanced fleet. The first of those, powered by International Aero Engines V2500 engines, arrived on lease in February 1999.

  A fourth secondhand Airbus A300-600R, again leased from Ansett Worldwide, joined the fleet the following April.

• 3. Buying Its Way To Scale

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  In October 2000, Qatar Airways ordered an Airbus A319CJ powered by International Aero Engines V2500 engines, plus an option for a second. The following year the carrier became Airbus's ninth customer for the A380, ordering two of the jets plus two more on option. It also resumed service to Jakarta that year. In May 2002, Qatar completed its withdrawal from Gulf Air, a move the government framed as necessary to develop its own national airline.

  In June 2003, Qatar Airways became the first airline to resume international service to Iraq, launching a route between Doha and Basra. That same month it added its first dedicated cargo aircraft, an Airbus A300-600R converted into a freighter in Germany. At the 2003 Paris Air Show, the airline ordered two Airbus A321s, fourteen A330s and two Airbus A340-600s. The A330 order split into eight -200s and six -300s, with options on six more -300s and eight more A340-600s. The first of these aircraft were due in 2004, with A340-600 deliveries slated for 2006.

  Flights to Shanghai began that year, opening the Chinese market to the carrier. Qatar Airways also began serving Manchester in April 2003, Tripoli in November, and Cebu and Singapore in December. At that year's Dubai Air Show, it firmed up a commitment for two more A380s and took options on two further aircraft. In 2003 Qatar Airways became the first airline audited under IATA's new operational safety programme, known as IOSA.

  For the fiscal year ending in March 2004, the airline reported its first profit ever, having carried 3.35 million passengers. Zürich became its fifty third destination in July 2004, and Yangon joined the network that December. A new route to Osaka launched in March 2005. The airline's first Airbus A340 was delivered on the 8th of September 2006.

  In May 2007, Qatar Airways signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for eighty A350 XWB jets, twenty of them A350-800s and the rest split between the -900 and -1000 versions. The deal was firmed up at the 2007 Paris Air Show, with three additional A380s folded in. That July, at the unveiling of the Boeing 787 in Everett, Qatar Airways's logo appeared on the new jet as a future customer, though the airline had not yet confirmed placing an order. In November 2007 it firmed up an order for thirty Boeing 787-8s, with options on thirty five more, alongside fourteen 777-300ERs, six 777-200LRs and seven 777 freighters, with five more freighters on option. The combined deal was valued in the billions of dollars. The airline took delivery of its first 335-seat Boeing 777-300ER in late November 2007.

  The route network grew that year too, adding Newark in June, Nagpur, the carrier's seventh Indian destination, in September, and Stockholm in November. A new nonstop service to New York's JFK airport, launched in November 2008, replaced the Newark route. Boeing handed over the airline's first two 777-200LRs in February 2009. At the Paris Air Show that June, Qatar Airways ordered twenty Airbus A320s and four A321s in a deal worth 1.9 billion dollars. In 2009 the carrier also launched its first flights to Australia, starting with Melbourne, along with new routes to Chengdu, Hangzhou, Phnom Penh and Clark International Airport in the Philippines.

  Tokyo-Narita followed in April 2010. On the 18th of May 2010, the airline put its first Boeing 777 freighter, registered A7-BFA, into service on a flight from Doha to Amsterdam. The jet had been delivered just four days earlier. Since 2010, Qatar Airways has launched twenty two new destinations, among them Ankara, Bangalore, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, São Paulo and Kolkata. It also launched service to Benghazi and Entebbe in 2011. Flights to Baku and Tbilisi, originally planned for 2011, were delayed to the 1st of February 2012 due to what the airline called operational issues. Boeing's handover of a 777-200LR in September 2011 marked the carrier's hundredth aircraft delivered by that manufacturer. At the Dubai Airshow that November, Qatar Airways ordered fifty five Airbus jets, fifty A320neos and five A380s, plus two Boeing 777 freighters.

  Perth became the airline's second Australian destination in July 2012. On the 8th of October 2012, Qatar Airways announced it would join the Oneworld alliance within eighteen months, mentored by British Airways. The joining ceremony took place on the 29th of October 2013. On the 12th of November 2012, Qatar Airways became the seventh carrier worldwide, and the first Middle Eastern airline, to take delivery of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The aircraft entered service on the Doha-Dubai route on the 20th of November, and Dreamliner flights to London Heathrow began on the 13th of December, the first regular Dreamliner service to the United Kingdom.

  During 2013 the airline launched flights to Gassim in Saudi Arabia, to Basra and Najaf in Iraq, to Phnom Penh, Salalah and Chicago, and, from September, to Ethiopia. In February 2013 Qatar Airways opened a European customer service centre in Wrocław, Poland. That June the carrier firmed up an order for two Boeing 777-300ERs plus seven options. On the first day of the 2013 Dubai Airshow, Qatar Airways ordered fifty Boeing 777-9Xs, a commitment firmed up at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show in a deal worth billions of dollars, with purchase rights on fifty more. The order also included four firm 777 freighters and four more on option, with first passenger deliveries expected from 2020.

  In May 2014, Qatar Airways launched an all-business-class service to London Heathrow using Airbus A319LR jets, and started flying to Edinburgh the same month. The carrier's first three Airbus A380s were expected in June 2014, but delivery slipped by several weeks, then again, before the first aircraft finally arrived on the 16th of September 2014. A380 service to London began that October. Qatar Airways became the launch customer for the Airbus A350 XWB, taking delivery of its first A350-900 on the 22nd of December 2014 and flying its first revenue service, to Frankfurt, on the 15th of January 2015. In January 2015 the airline ordered four more Boeing 777 freighters in a deal valued in the billions, with purchase rights on four more. By June 2015 it had ordered ten Boeing 777-8Xs and four additional 777 freighters for 4.18 billion dollars.

  On the 5th of February 2017, Qatar Airways held the record for the world's longest regularly scheduled flight, connecting Doha and Auckland.

• 4. One Family's Airline

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  In June 2013, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani became emir of Qatar. His government bought out the fifty percent stake in Qatar Airways still held by former prime minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani and other stakeholders, making the airline fully state owned. Hamad bin Jassim also stepped down from his other public roles at the same time, including his positions as foreign minister and as chief executive of the Qatar Investment Authority.

  Today the Qatar Airways Group employs more than forty eight thousand people, of whom thirty two thousand work directly for the airline. As of February 2020, Qatar Airways was the largest shareholder in the International Airlines Group, holding 25.1 percent of its shares. Some observers have described the airline as an example of soft power diplomacy, used by Qatar's government to help rebrand the state. Human rights organisations have criticised the airline for its ties to the Qatari government, pointing to the country's human rights record.

  Badr Mohammed Al-Meer now serves as Qatar Airways' chief executive. He succeeded Akbar Al Baker, who stepped down on the 5th of November 2023 after running the airline since November 1996, a tenure of twenty seven years.

  Qatar Airways' holdings extend beyond passenger flights, into divisions such as Qatar Aircraft Catering Company, Qatar Duty Free and a corporate jet operation called Qatar Executive.

• 5. Redesigning The Cabin

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  First class on Qatar Airways is available only aboard its Airbus A380s. The seats, arranged in a 1-2-1 layout, measure 90 inches and fold flat into a bed, each paired with a 26 inch television screen and a built in massage function.

  In March 2017 the airline unveiled a new business class cabin called Qsuite, featuring suites with closing doors arranged 1-2-1. Middle section suites can convert into a shared quad room, letting four passengers face each other as if seated at a dining table, and paired seats can combine into a double bed. Qsuite launched on new Boeing 777-300ERs and A350s in the summer of 2017, debuting first on the Doha to London Heathrow route. The retrofit is being rolled out across the rest of the fleet, but not onto the Airbus A330 or A380, which the airline began retiring in 2019 and 2024 respectively as the A350, Boeing 787 and Boeing 777X replace them.

  Economy seat pitch runs up to 34 inches, and passengers on the A350, A380, 777 and 787 get touch screen entertainment monitors. New economy seats introduced alongside the 787, built by Recaro in a 3-3-3 layout, offer 16.9 inches of width, a 32 inch pitch and a 10.6 inch entertainment screen with USB ports built in.

  Qatar Airways opened its Al Safwa First Lounge for first class passengers in 2015. Its first lounge outside Doha opened at London Heathrow's Terminal 4 in January 2012, followed by a premium lounge at Dubai International's Concourse D in April 2016. A third international lounge opened within Terminal 1 at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport in January 2017, with room for 200 passengers across two terraces, one of them reserved for smoking.

  In October 2023, Qatar Airways struck a deal with Starlink to bring high speed internet onto its aircraft.

• 6. The Sponsorship Playbook

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  Qatar Airways has sponsored the weather forecast on Sky News since August 2005. In July 2013 it became FC Barcelona's primary shirt sponsor, a deal that ran until 2017. The airline became a FIFA partner in May 2017, sponsoring every FIFA tournament through 2022 under a four year deal later extended to 2030. That same month it became official airline partner of the FIA Formula E championship's Paris and New York City races.

  In February 2018, Qatar Airways became FC Bayern Munich's sleeve sponsor, a seven year deal extended through the 2025 season. It went on to sponsor A.S. Roma's shirt from April 2018 and Boca Juniors' from July 2018. In October 2018 the airline became primary sponsor of CONMEBOL's club competitions across South America, a deal running four and a half years to the 2022 season.

  Paris Saint-Germain took Qatar Airways on as premium partner in February 2020, a three season deal later extended, in June 2022, through the 2025 season. Qatar Airways began sponsoring Tunisia's Club Africain in August 2020 and the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament in February 2021. In July 2021, the airline extended a sponsorship first signed for the 2017-20 cycle to cover the CONCACAF Gold Cup and Nations League through 2024.

  On the 22nd of February 2023, Formula One named Qatar Airways its new Global Airline Partner, replacing Emirates, in a multi year deal that included title sponsorship of three 2023 races. On the 3rd of March 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore signed Qatar Airways as title sponsor for three years in a deal worth 75 crore rupees. In September 2023 the Alpine F1 Team named Qatar Airways its Official Airline Partner, tied to that year's Qatar Grand Prix, run from the 6th to the 8th of October. Inter Milan followed in November 2023, and by September 2024 Qatar Airways had become sponsor of the UEFA Champions League itself, in a deal running to 2030.

  In February 2021 the airline also launched WeQare, a programme committing to fly wild animals back to their native habitats.

• 7. An Airline Under Strain

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  Qatar Airways pays its long haul cabin crew significantly less than rival carriers. Qantas, Australia's flag carrier, pays its long haul crew on average three times more for flights covering similar distances. Trade union activity is effectively illegal for most workers in Qatar, so employees are barred from campaigning for pay increases through industrial action.

  In 2014 the Swedish newspaper Expressen published a report centred on three Qatar Airways employees whose lives were allegedly heavily monitored and controlled by the company. The airline's Swedish public relations agency said it could not comment, since it did not know which individuals or cases the article referenced. Chief executive Akbar Al Baker denied the claims outright, saying, "This is not directed at Qatar Airways, but rather at my home country. My country is being unfairly criticized and attacked without any justification." A 2022 investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation found that crew members faced dangerous, life threatening working conditions. Pilots and cabin crew reported burnout and fatigue from being overworked and underpaid, and said they feared speaking out due to the risk of discipline or prosecution.

  On the 2nd of October 2020, thirteen Australian women aboard a Qatar Airways flight to Sydney were forced to deplane at gunpoint at Hamad International Airport in Doha. They were then strip searched and, according to reports, subjected to an invasive internal examination against their will, reportedly prompted by the discovery of a newborn baby in an airport bathroom. Australia's then foreign minister, Marise Payne, called the treatment of the women "offensive, grossly inappropriate, and beyond circumstances in which the women could give free and informed consent." The affected women began legal proceedings against Qatar Airways and the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority in October 2022, under the Montreal Convention.

  In July 2023, Australia's government rejected a request from Qatar Airways to double its flight capacity into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Transport Minister Catherine King named the 2020 incident as one factor in that decision. The following September, Qatar Airways' senior vice president of global sales, Matt Raos, told an Australian Senate inquiry the incident was "a one-off and an isolated incident." In April 2024 the Federal Court of Australia dismissed the women's case, finding the searches had not happened aboard a Qatar Airways aircraft or been carried out by its employees. In 2025 the full bench of that court reversed the decision, allowing the case to proceed against Qatar Airways and Matar, the operator of Hamad International Airport.

  Qatari officials had already issued an apology over the episode back in 2020, even as the legal fight over it was only beginning.

• 8. Feuds And Bribery

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  Qatar Airways clashed with American Airlines from 2017 to 2020, and with Qantas in a dispute that began in 2018 and continues today. In 2015 and again in 2019, Qatar Airways threatened to leave the Oneworld alliance over its strained relationship with American and Qantas, but never followed through. In 2022 Qatar Airways reportedly came close to forcing Qantas out of the alliance entirely, a move ultimately blocked through heavy involvement from American Airlines. In 2024 Qatar Airways bought a 25 percent stake in Virgin Australia, a move that bypassed the need for Australian government approval of expanded bilateral flight rights and increased its competition with Qantas. That competition had already escalated in July 2023, when Australia's government blocked a Qatar Airways plan to expand into Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, a decision backed by Qantas, which argued the extra flights would "distort the market."

  In 2016, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines alleged that forensic investigators had found documents showing Qatar Airways received more than 7 billion dollars in aid from its government. The investigation was reportedly carried out by the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. The U.S. State Department held talks with Qatari officials about the allegations in July 2016 but took no formal action. Qatar Airways denied receiving any subsidies, and Al Baker condemned the accusations.

  Akbar Al Baker, who ran Qatar Airways from 1996 to 2023, drew criticism for comments many called sexist. At a dinner in Ireland in July 2017, he said the average age of his cabin crew was only 26, adding that on what he called "crap American carriers" passengers "are always being served by grandmothers." The U.S. Association of Flight Attendants said it was "disgusted but not surprised by Qatar Airways' attack on women," warning that "if you prop up Qatar Airways, you are supporting sexism, racism, and ageism. Period." Al Baker later wrote an apology letter to the association. Its president, Sara Nelson, replied, "As a leader in the aviation industry, you know that your words carry weight and should be taken at face value. I accept your apology." In June 2018, after being elected chairman of the International Air Transport Association, Al Baker said he did not believe a woman could lead Qatar Airways "because it is a very challenging position." He later apologized, saying he had been attempting a joke, but stopped short of taking back the underlying belief.

  In December 2019, British travel executive Marc Bennett was found hanged in his Doha hotel room. According to a 2022 investigation by The Times, Bennett had been arrested and held uncharged for three weeks after resigning from a senior post at Qatar Airways to join a rival firm in Saudi Arabia. His family said he was tortured, physically and mentally, while in custody, and that his passport was confiscated after his release. Qatar Airways told The Times that Bennett had emailed confidential company documents to a private address without authorization, which was why "he was arrested and this then became a police matter." Qatari authorities said Bennett had died by suicide. Qatar Airways called him "a valued and popular former colleague" who "left with our best wishes."

  In December 2022 the European Parliament suspended Qatar's access to it, following allegations that Qatari representatives had offered bribes to influence a major air transit agreement with the European Union. Those allegations led to the arrest of several people, including MEP Eva Kaili. Lufthansa called for the EU-Qatar air transport agreement itself to be suspended, citing competitive disparities and the corruption allegations surrounding its negotiation. In November 2024 the European Public Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal investigation into Henrik Hololei, a former EU transport chief, over claims he accepted free business class flights from Qatar Airways nine times between 2015 and 2021 while negotiating an Open Skies deal that favoured the airline. Hololei resigned as director general but remained a political adviser within the European Commission while the case proceeded through disciplinary review. After the investigation concluded in January 2026, Hololei was dismissed from the European Commission for breaching its rules on conflicts of interest, gift acceptance and disclosure.

  Following his dismissal, airlines, pilots and aviation worker unions petitioned the European Union to suspend and reassess the EU-Qatar agreement altogether, arguing that "unrestricted market access to the European Union cannot be the product of compromised negotiations."