Qatar Airways has increased flights between Doha to Boston from daily to 10 weekly. Ever since the route started in March 2016, it has never exceeded daily – until now. It will follow the arrival of Etihad at the Massachusetts airport at the end of March.
A record high for Boston
Beginning in mid-May, ahead of the peak summer season for demand, Qatar Airways will fly to Boston an additional three times weekly. All 10 weekly flights will use the two-class, 283-seat Airbus A350-900. There are 36 seats in business and 247 in economy.
Adding an extra 1,698 weekly roundtrip seats is a huge increase. Fortunately, it appears that it will only be seasonal. Still, let us hope the additional seats are filled and at sufficiently high prices. If that happens, 10-weekly might return next summer.
The new schedule is shown below, with all times local. I especially like that all the flight numbers are IATA codes for that most famous four-engined type.
- Doha to Boston: QR747, 01:35-08:10 (13h 35m) ← new three weekly
- Doha to Boston: QR743, 08:15-14:50 (13h 35m) ← daily
- Boston to Doha: QR748, 11:40-06:25+1 (11h 45m) ← new three weekly
- Doha to Boston: QR744, 21:35-16:45+1 (12h 10m) ← daily
A look at the carrier to Boston
Examining US Department of Transportation T-100 data for the 12 months to October 2023, the most recent month available to me, indicates that Qatar Airways carried 189,100 Boston passengers. It had the fewest passengers of its 12 US routes, with Dallas Fort Worth being next (213,825).
On average, Boston had 259 passengers per flight. With 283-seat aircraft, it filled about 91.5% of available capacity, two percentage points higher than Qatar Airways’ US average. Of course, seat load factor is just one performance element and should not be considered in isolation.