Qatar Airways Will Launch Flights To San Francisco (Qsuites Awards Available)

You mean major omission, not "commission" with regards to the Toronto flight. Those are two different things.

Another competitor for the lucrative San Fran-India market. This time, one of the world’s best business class products. Good news for passengers!

Post Corona resolution looking forward to try this route for the SFO BLR run! Prefer a one stop Qatar to a non stop UA

Since there are restrictions and almost no travel permitted from India - US and embargoes for American passport holders , it makes no sense to start a new service in a few weeks
Load factors are not exactly fantastic now

What happened to the Toronto flight? Any idea why it was cancelled ? Temp or Perm?

Still waiting on that LAS-DOH route.

another way for Qatar to loose money!! WOW

This is much needed after Etihad abandoned SF.

Quatar website, in addition to face mask.....Face shields will be distributed at the airport and are to be worn when boarding and disembarking. Economy Class are required to wear them on board, except when eating or drinking. Business Class are asked to wear them at their own discretion.

@Sharon..exactly!

Good luck trying to sleep with both of these on! I'll wait until all safety options are at every passengers discretion including face masks.

I think Qatar also served Houston before the pandemic. You may want to include that in the list of cities for US destinations.

@Eric That’s correct and you beat me in pointing it out first. Nice to see that I’m NOT the only one paying attention!!

I will take 1-stop Qatar Qsuites any day over non-stop UA Polaris and meh food!

@Eric: YES!! Good catch. I have flown Qatar from IAH, last year.

@roman. Face shield with surgical mask isn't too bad. Did a few long hauls this year with the combo and while it takes some getting used to it's not horrible. Bring a few masks to change out if the flight is longer than 6-7 hours. Prob actually easier to wear the face shield in economy / non-lie flats as you dont turn over and crush it.

This is great news since Emirates isn’t flying from SFO possibly until March 21.

@eric. I don't understand QR does operate IAH like right now it does.

@Sam "Qatar's bilateral agreement with Canada is maxed out with 4x weekly frequencies a week, currently all being used for YUL. They received extra-bilateral approval to operate 3x weekly service to YYZ for the month of July only. Hence why the flights are no longer bookable. QR should have never advertised the new route in the first place. Fake news, so to speak, as it's not a new route, just a temporary permission, due to COVID. Yes, the flights were bookable online, but QR made it seem like the route was a permanent addition. It isn't. Air India has received the same kind of approval for YVR service in July, yet they never announced it as a new route."

Does this open up any good points sweet spots for Qsuites?

I have my doubts on the viability of this route particularly amidst these troubled times.
India will be one of the key source markets for this service. You may wish to recall that Etihad had to pull out of SFO once Air India commenced non-stop services to SFO. Since then United has launched a year round non stop daily service to SFO from Delhi (in addition to Air India) and will be launching an additional service from the tech hub Bangalore.
Additionally Air Canada offers daily services from Delhi to Vancouver with excellent connections to WC destinations.
Pre-pandemic, American was also considering a non-stop service from Bangalore to Seattle.
Considering the reduced demand for the next three years and the increasing number of non-stop and one stop options available from India to SFO, it may well be possible that Qatar backtracks from this route.
That being said they have been known to be unpredictable and sometimes their rationale is not driven by financial metrics so let’s see how this goes.

Don't blame QR for cancelling the Toronto flights when the Canadian government is entirely culpable. The government is anti-consumer and in Air Canada's pocket and heavily restricts access to Canada for foreign airlines. In fact, Canada is literally the ONLY western country that is NOT an IASTA first freedom flight member. Another example of the anti-consumerism is the passenger protection laws that were brought into effect in 2018 by the CTA and are a joke compared to the DOT's and EU's laws. Not to mention the government's approval of Air Canada's takeover of Air Transat, which was approved in Canada with nary a peep but is thankfully being investigated by the EU for anti-trust reasons. If the takeover is approved I can't even imagine what prices the AC-WS duopoly would charge on domestic travel.

Emirates is restricted to 5 weekly flights and Qatar to 4 weekly flights. There's been a dispute between the Canadian government and the UAE over this issue since 2011. QR and EK could easily operate daily flights to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver while offering superior connectivity to India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq for the huge immigrant population in Canada. Instead we get gouged and forced to take longer and more expensive flights to Europe with Air Canada and connect with Lufthansa if we're lucky enough and Lufthansa flies to where we want to go.

Qatar have really profited off the pandemic, among the few airlines who gained permissions to fly from countries such as Thailand pretty early on. They keep advertising their flexible bookings and whatever. However, their customer service is nonexistent. I had some concerns before flying recently from Bangkok to Belgrade, and could only reach them via Facebook, but even then received bot-like replies with links.
I did not get a clear answer before getting on the flight about onward tickets, and was denied boarding unless I bought a ticket to my HOME COUNTRY. I presented an onward bus ticket to a nearby country, but check-in agents said that only ticket to my home country (that HAS to take me in) would be accepted, and it has to be flight tickets (as that's what they can check in their system). I've talked to multiple travelers who had the same experience. The company sold tickets without informing customers of this weird requirement (check-in agents said it was only in their internal system).
I also had to monitor sites like Flightradar to choose flights that were actually real, because Qatar was still selling flights such as Phuket-Doha as part of the journey, even thought those haven't been flying for a while and have all been cancelled.
I filed a complaint on their website and received a three-sentence response basically saying that it was my responsibility to comply with regulations and they were right. I spoke to another traveler that was on my Doha-Belgrade flight, as a tourist, same as me, flying one way, and he was not asked anything of this sort when boarding in Tokyo. The airline did not offer any compensation for the stress and monetary loss of $420 (since I had to buy a ticket to Russia to be boarded - otherwise I would face overstay and jail in Thailand).

QR got an extra 7x weekly extension from the government of Canada to add more service to Canada meaning 11x weekly service to Canada with the addition of YYZ and YVR along with with the original YUL service. The extra 7x weekly slot extension has to be divided between both YYZ and YVR and one destination can only have a max of 4x weekly while the other gets the rest of the 3x weekly slots. That is the only hurdle at the moment for QR to decide which destination will 4x weekly and which one will get 3x weekly. Both YVR and YYZ should launch mid 2021 after these slots decisions has been made.

@QRFan01
That's great news, do you have a source for this? It'll be great to finally see QR in YYZ

@Lucky MIA-DOH is CXL through March. I have my doubts this will launch and if it does, it wont last long

Unfortunately there isn’t a single seat available in all of January from DOH-SFO which is what I needed.

@CG ,I just Booked a couple of seats this afternoon. My original ticket was for Lax then to Sfo.

I don't see a single seat DOH-SFO throughout the entire year ! I don't see any in DOH-LAX either... @EK266, did you see the availability online (or) did you call & check ?

YES!!!!!! Ben thanks much for this post!

@MM

This is from my personal source, nothing is online as of yet as both countries and QR are negotiating about where each slot is going to go.