The oneworld alliance’s presence in Qatar keeps growing, with Iberia announcing plans to fly to Hamad International Airport…
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Iberia launching Madrid to Doha flights
As of December 11, 2023, Iberia will launch a new daily, year-round flight between Madrid (MAD) and Doha (DOH). The flight will operate daily with the following schedule:
IB6701 Madrid to Doha departing 8:30AM arriving 5:35PM
IB6700 Doha to Madrid departing 12:55AM arriving 7:10AM
The 3,317-mile flight is blocked at 7hr5min eastbound and 8hr15min westbound. Iberia will use an Airbus A330-200 for the service, featuring 288 seats. This includes 19 business class seats and 269 economy class seats.
Keep in mind that Qatar Airways is one of the biggest shareholders of International Airlines Group (IAG), which is the parent company of British Airways and Iberia.
British Airways and Qatar Airways already have a joint venture that covers more than 60 countries. With Iberia also soon flying to Doha, the Spanish carrier is joining this joint venture as well. Between Qatar Airways and Iberia, there will be up to three daily flights between Doha and Madrid.
Obviously this route is primarily about connecting traffic, as Doha is an ideal place to connect if traveling to the Middle East, India, Africa, Asia, Australia, and beyond. Customers traveling on Iberia’s service will be able to connect to roughly 200 destinations on Qatar Airways, and the flights are timed to maximize connectivity.
Doha’s growing oneworld partner presence
Qatar Airways really dominates Doha Hamad Airport, though it’s impressive the extent to which other oneworld airlines have started service to the airport. The airport now has flights from oneworld partners American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines. Japan Airlines recently announced it would launch flights to Doha, and now Iberia will fly to the airport as well.
It’s my understanding that Qatar has been offering some very lucrative incentives for partners to launch service to Doha, beyond the typical kinds of offers we see for airlines starting new routes (like waived landing fees, etc.). So I imagine that has contributed to the amount of growth we’ve seen from oneworld partners.
Filling planes to and from Doha is easy, given how much of the world’s population lives within a short distance of the Middle East. The challenge is filling these planes profitably, since these are often flights in fairly low yield markets, with passengers traveling very long distances.
This route makes a lot of sense, though, given that Iberia’s network is much bigger going west than east, so this will enable one-stop connectivity to all kinds of destinations.
Bottom line
As of December 2023, Iberia will launch a new daily flight from Madrid to Doha using an Airbus A330. This is only the latest of an ever-growing number of oneworld carriers adding flights to Doha. This route in particular shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Qatar Airways has a stake in IAG, and Iberia is also being added to the joint venture of British Airways and Qatar Airways.
Now, I couldn’t imagine choosing to fly Iberia over Qatar Airways in this market, but that’s a whole different story…
What do you make of Iberia’s new flight to Doha?
Makes sense for connectivity from/towards Latam. IB has recently introduced a second bank of Latam flights, arriving between 5 and 6am to Madrid. Obviously, the later bank still sells better, but like this they can attract more traffic on the earlier bank.
Why would someone fly AA, IB or BA when they can fly QR?
Do people think at all, before they reflexively parrot this refrain? It could be any number of reasons, from contractual, to use of SWUs, to departure time, etc.
QR isn't nearly as good now as it use to be, particularly in business. I'd consider AA business over QR. My last few doh-jfk flights on QR were in the old 2-2-2 configuration, which is significantly worse than AA's herringbone.
Iberia business class can be very good, particularly on their A350 aircraft. One of my most pleasant flights in recent times was MAD-SJO on IB in C. The F&B was excellent and they have a selection of sherries on board which make a nice change to the normal champagne/red wine offering. On my annual trip down under I will certainly be tempted to take IB to DOH connecting onto QR to SYD.
Alliance hubs are becoming an important feature of the alliances in this era of plane delivery/design delays. The current OW hubs with the most partners are: DFW in the US, LHR in England, DOH in Qatar, NRT/HND in Toyko. Hong Kong was probably up there before covid, but sadly now isn't served by as many OW carriers.
Lots of naysayers about AA's international network (aside from Latin America/Carribean obviously), but oneworld has done an excellent job connecting their hubs.
Fly via DOH often, but only know their Midnight and AM bank of flights. I wonder what a 535pm arrival connects with? The departure is timed well, however.
Many flights to Southeast Asia depart at 7-8 PM
Wonder if we'll see AA flights from CLT and PHX to DOH anytime soon.
I would love a CLT-DOH flight but ideally it should be operated by QR.
Ideally it shouldn't be operated at all, seeing as it'd have about 2 O&D pax on it. But then again, that didn't stop them with Atlanta, so who knows.
Don't forget Oman Air also has flights to DOH as well and will join Oneworld in 2024.
This leaves Cathay and Qantas as the only two OW carriers who have aircraft with the range but don't fly to DOH.
Qantas already has a JV with Emirates and used to fly to Dubai on their way to london but stopped and now its all about emirates connecting on to QF flights
Cathay does (did?) have a DXB flight (which I think also continues onward to... Bahrain?), not sure if that is about O+D traffic from HKG or to capture connecting traffic from Asia.
But then again I guess Cathay is more focused on rebuilding themselves and existing routes rather than starting new routes at the moment. Not sure what will happen to their DXB route if they decide to start DOH in the future..
CX used to fly to DOH. But, this has obviously been axed post-COVID. Ex-Cathay planes fly to DOH (as QR), if that counts :-)
CX cut DOH service well before COVID. The CX flight to Dubai continued onward to Bahrain but this was cut during COVID. Now CX codeshares with GF on DXB-BAH services.
anyone else have trouble finding AA award availability on qatar for a lot of US to DOH flights recently? Might just be demand but a lot tougher than it was a year ago.
all J reward between Doh and Us gone.
Is it the same case for US to AUH flights on Etihad?
That's what I find every time I check (at least on QR metal). I've seen availability in J on JFK-DOH on AA metal but if I'm flying J from the US to DOH it needs to be on QR.
yeah it just disappeared a few days ago. hoping it comes back soon