Whether Qatar remains the world’s biggest long-haul carrier by capacity partly depends on how quickly other airlines restore schedules, and if it has built up enough goodwill with customers to start filling flights“We are ready for competition, we have never shied away from competition, we like competition,” Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said in an interview, in a veiled reference to Emirates.
“If we’re smart, we’re grown up about it, then there are ways and means of restoring capacity to the routes without having to blow the trumpet about being the biggest and the best,” said Emirates President Tim Clark.than Qatar during the pandemic. It grounded most of its fleet in March of last year, parking more than 100 superjumbo Airbus A380s, and has slowly restored routes. It now flies roughly 110 routes, compared with more than 150 before the pandemic.
The strategy is already paying off for some routes. Qatar launched flights to Seattle earlier this year and had a 22.3% market share of passenger traffic from Asia in March, versus 16.7% for Emirates, which began operating there nine years ago, according to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport statistics.