Qatar Airways celebrated Thursday five years of flying to Washington DC, the capital of the US. The airline began flights to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) on July 19, 2007. The fifth anniversary comes a week after Qatar Airways was named World's Best Airline at the prestigious annual Skytrax awards and just a month after the carrier celebrated five years of service to New York - its first US gateway. Washington, DC is served non-stop, daily from Qatar Airways' hub in Doha, Qatar, offering passengers superior levels of hospitality. Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said: "This year marks an important anniversary on the airline's route map, with the celebration of two key US routes of New York and Washington which seamlessly connect passengers from West to East via Doha." The Washington - Doha non-stop service is approximately 12 hours flying time and is operated with the airline's flagship Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, in a 2-2-2 cabin configuration offering 42 seats in Business Class and 293 seats in Economy. Business Class customers can relax and unwind in a seat that converts into a fully-flat horizontal bed, while Economy Class customers can settle into their comfort zone in a spacious 3-3-3 seating configuration which feature 10.6 inch individual TV monitors at each seat. Qatar Airways currently flies from six gateways in the Americas, including Washington, DC, Houston, New York, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo - all daily - and Montreal thrice-weekly. With the airline's diverse range of destinations, passengers from the US can connect through Doha and onwards to key business and leisure destinations across India, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Australia. Qatar Airways Senior Vice President for the Americas, Bart Vos said: "The airline's operations in the USA have seen exceptional growth and on the occasion of this fifth anniversary milestone, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their continued support, loyalty and appreciation of our award-winning Five Star in-flight service and product." Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 15 years of operations, currently operating a modern fleet of 110 aircraft to 117 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America. Since the beginning of the year, Qatar Airways has launched flights to Baku (Azerbaijan); Tbilisi (Georgia); Kigali (Rwanda); Zagreb (Croatia), Erbil (Iraq), Baghdad (Iraq), and most recently, Perth (Australia) with many more destinations planned during 2012. Over the next few months, Qatar Airways launches services to a diverse portfolio of new routes, including Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (July 25); Yangon, Myanmar (Oct. 3); Maputo, Mozambique (Oct. 31) and a date yet-to-be-announced to the Serbian capital Belgrade. – SG
