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Qatar Airways is no stranger to glamorous inflight experiences and sometimes flashy media headlines. The Oneworld alliance member is a growing global carrier that is upending what travelers should expect from an airline. The carrier’s vision comes from its CEO, Akbar Al Baker, who is responsible for taking this once-small carrier to the global stage. As the current chairman for the Oneworld alliance himself, Al Baker sits down to explain his post-pandemic goals for the airline and what he sees as both obstacles and opportunities as the world travels again. Q: What is the biggest challenge for running an airline post-pandemic? A: It’s restarting from zero. Fortunately, we didn’t listen to everybody else and ground planes while shutting the doors on our staff. This helped to elevate the Qatar Airways brand and allowed the airline to restart more quickly when needed. People that we helped to repatriate had never traveled on Qatar Airways. Many thought there were only one airline in the Middle East during that time, and they discovered that there was another carrier available when they were abandoned by their favorite airlines that slowed operations. Story has more.<br/>

The Fiji Airways hangar at Nadi Airport is usually busy with mechanics and engineers but on Tuesday, August 15, it’s hosting a milestone event for the national carrier. At the front of an audience of more than 2000, a conga line of women sways to and fro to the sound of island rhythms blasted over a PA system that fills the cavernous space. There’s an MC on the stage and the giant video screen shows an aircraft approaching. It’s an Airbus A350-900XWB, the latest acquisition for Fiji Airways. This is Fiji Airways’ third A350. Another is expected to arrive before the end of August. Within the space of two weeks the airline will have doubled its A350 fleet. That’s a big call for any airline, and a huge vote of confidence, symptomatic of the rapid recovery of the island-nation’s tourism industry. Fiji took a big hit during the pandemic. Medical containment zones were established on Viti Levu, the main island, restricting travel. A curfew was imposed and inter-island travel forbidden. Workers who were marooned on island resorts had to stay put, in some cases within sight of their families on neighbouring islands. International travel shut down. Although Fiji had fewer cases of COVID-19 and deaths relative to its population than Australia, authorities were terrified that if the infection spread on outer islands it would cripple Fiji’s medical system. Fiji re-opened to visitors on December 1, 2021. “Once borders re-opened we had anticipated a very slow ramp up to 2019 levels that would take at least 18 months,” according to Andre Viljoen, Fiji Airways’ CE. “During the shutdown we put in place a readiness strategy that covered all areas of our operations and that really paid off. We were the first movers when borders opened in Australia and the USA and that aligned with the eagerness of our former clients and within the expatriate community to return to Fiji. Within six months we reached the pre-COVID passenger numbers experienced in 2019.”<br/>