Qatar Airways CE stands by aircraft orders despite airspace blockade

Qatar Airways CE Akbar Al Baker ruled out aircraft cancellations after 4 Middle Eastern countries blocked the airline from using their airspace, but the airline will start redeploying capacity to new destinations. “We still need some time, but we will redeploy very soon,” Al Baker said Monday. The airline plans to bring forward the launch of new destinations such as Skopje, Macedonia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as open more destinations in Iran to use excess narrowbody capacity freed up as a result of the blockade. The airline will launch new long-haul destinations in South America in January—Rio de Janeiro and Santiago de Chile—despite the much increased flight time. Flights to Brazil now have to take a 2-hour detour because of the airspace closures. <br/>