Qatar Airways announced today that they’ll be launching daily service between Doha and Dallas Ft. Worth as of July 1, 2014. The new service will operate with the following schedule:
QR733 Doha to Dallas departing 8:10AM arriving 4:15PM
QR734 Dallas to Doha departing 7:35PM arriving 6:20PM (+1 day)
The flight will be operated by one of their 777-200LR aircraft, featuring 42 fully flat business class seats and 217 economy class seats. These are ultra longhaul flights, blocked at 16hr5min westbound, and 14hr45min eastbound.
Qatar Airways’ other North America destinations include Chicago, Houston, Montreal, New York, and Washington. Furthermore, they’ll be launching service to Philadelphia as of April 2, 2014, and service to Miami as of June 1, 2014. That will make Dallas their seventh US destination and eighth North American destination.
This new route is more or less a no brainer. Qatar Airways joined the OneWorld alliance in late October, so it’s only logical for them to launch service to Dallas, Miami, and Philadelphia, all of which are hubs of the “new” American. I think the only aspect of this that’s surprising is the speed at which they’re increasing capacity, given that within three months they’re launching three new routes to the US.
I’ve looked into award availability on the new route, and it’s excellent. Most dates have at least four award seats in both business and economy class, so the flight is wide open as far as award seats go. As I’ve mentioned before, Qatar Airways is a great partner for booking a distance based OneWorld Explorer Award using American AAdvantage miles, due to the location of Doha as a gateway to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
If redeeming American miles for a partner award, you’d pay 67,500 miles one-way in business class. Meanwhile if redeeming British Airways Avios you’d pay 70,000 Avios one-way in business class for the new route, though British Airways does also impose fuel surcharges, which can be pretty hefty at ~$350 one-way.
Certainly an exciting new route that’s great for connections!
Has anyone flown this DFW-DOH? I'm wondering how the Business seats are for such a long haul...and also how early the FAs wake everyone up eastbound... I've had trouble with BA CC waking everyone up at the crack of dawn even though there are hours left until arrival and pax have had only 4 hrs of sleep.
@ Mike Conrad -- Give how long of a flight it is, I'm sure the flight attendants waking passengers up won't be an issue. The seats are fully flat and forward facing, so not revolutionary, though they're comfortable.
@ FlyingTigerSC -- For late summer/early fall of this year? The space should already be released. Qatar tends to open up award space as soon as the schedule opens in my experience.
Lucky-- how far in advance does space get released? I'm trying to plan award travel (1 seat) from US to MLE on Qatar (I'd prefer not to get hosed with BA surcharges) in business class for late summer/early fall of 2014.
One way...then really excited about CX 77w business class product :)
@ Phillip -- You can search the space on ba.com.
I agree with ffi, is there any easy way to search any Qatar availability using AA miles? is the only way to call American?
@ Raj -- It sounds like you may be running into the first issue I wrote about in this post:
https://onemileatatime.com/the-dark-side-of-americans-award-ticket-rules/
AA agent tells me that DOH-DFW is not bookable using AAdvantage miles, I could see availability on BA website using Avios. Also learned a strange rule today that says I cannot keep Houston as stop over city if I wanted to continue my journey to Hawaii. Something like DOH-IAH-LAX-LIH is not a valid routing when flying on Qatar.
I have had trouble looking up Qatar availability even using Qantas site.
The old COdbaUA site is the best among the 3 majors, though the airline has been trashed
@ Happy -- No, American doesn't impose fuel surcharges on Qatar redemptions.
Do you need to pay fuel surcharges when using AA miles for redemption?
@ Raj -- Qatar doesn't have first class on any of their 777s, which are the only aircraft they fly to North America.
What is QR's first class? Or is it only biz?
@ David -- Well the flight is roughly 8,000 miles, and you can find the earnings chart for AAdvantage by class of service here:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/qatar.jsp
Hey Ben,
What are the qualifying miles earned on paid flight? Using AAvantage account.
@ Peter -- I've heard great things about Hainan. Wish they were part of an alliance so I could redeem miles on them!
In other new routes made official today, Hainan added BOS-PEK on 787 starting in June. They seem to have a good reputation but are they not a member of any alliance? Any thoughts on them Ben?
@ ashok -- Yeah, for whatever reason it's not showing up on BA's website. I called American to ask about award availability.
Lucky, I tried searching availability on BA site and cannot find any. Are you using any other site to search availability?
@ choi -- Only on a distance based award or as two separate awards.
does AA allows you to book this route all the way to Souheast Asia ?