Qatar Airways has embarked on its Boeing 787 European expansion with the deployment of the Dreamliner on three additional routes – Munich, Zurich and Frankfurt. The Doha-based carrier has started flying the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on the Munich route four-times-a-week. On Monday, the first-ever commercial flight of a Boeing 787 to Switzerland took off with Qatar Airways introducing the Dreamliner on the Zurich route three-times-a-week.
Beginning 01Feb13, one of the double daily services to Frankfurt will be served by a Boeing 787, while 01Feb13 also signals an increase of 787 frequency on the Munich and Zurich routes to daily. All three destinations are currently operated with a mixed Airbus fleet.
The addition of the German-speaking cities to the already established 787 on one of the five daily London Heathrow flights takes to four the number of European routes featuring the aircraft. Also starting 01Feb13 Qatar Airways will deploy the 787 on all daily flights from Doha to Perth.
Qatar Airways currently operates four 787s, with a further 56 pending delivery. The airline took delivery of its first Boeing 787 in November.
Qatar Airways’ Dreamliner aircraft features 254 custom-made seats across its Business and Economy Class cabins with specially designed interiors, together with an inflight entertainment system offering over 1,000 audio and video fully interactive programming options.
The Business cabin features 22 seats in a 1–2–1 layout while Economy has 232 seats in a 3–3–3 configuration.
One special feature of every seat throughout the aircraft is the touch screen Android system, where passengers are able to navigate through the interactive service. The touch-screen control unit has a unique dual screen interface allowing passengers to play games on their handheld device while enjoying a movie on their personal screen.
Qatar Airways’ Dreamliner is also the world’s first fully connected 787 with wireless facilities that enable passengers to be fully connected with the ground through WIFI and GSM telephony and to send both text and MMS messages. Each seat is equipped with USB, MP3 and other charger ports, including laptop power outlets.
