Qatar Airways CEO discusses new business class, future of A380s and Oneworld alliance

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/>