Qatar Airways to introduce A380 on Doha-Melbourne route

Qatar Airways has announced plans to introduce an Airbus A380 on its service to Melbourne next year to meet rising passenger demand.

A 517-seater version of the superjumbo will increase Qatar’s capacity on the Doha-Melbourne route by 44 per cent from June 30, 2017, the carried said.

Qatar originally launched the route with a 259-seater Boeing 777.

The new three-class A380 will include 461 economy seats, 48 business class seats and eight first class seats.

“As we continue to grow apace in Australia, we have seen a clear need to inject additional capacity on the Melbourne service. We are delighted to introduce our A380 aircraft to Melbourne after seven years of operation to the world’s most liveable city,” said Qatar Airways group CEO Akbar Al Baker.

The QR904 service takes off from Doha at 8:50pm before arriving in Melbourne at 17:20pm the next day.

Return flight QR905 departs at 10:05pm and arrives at 5:25am the next day.

Qatar also serves Perth and launched flights to Sydney and Adelaide this year.

Other new routes for the carrier in 2016 include Atlanta, Birmingham, Boston, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Marrakech, Pisa, Ras Al Khaimah, Mahé, Windhoek, and Yerevan.

Earlier this month, Qatar also confirmed the launch of direct flights to Dublin in 2017.

Read: Qatar Airways announces Doha-Dublin flights