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It was made public that the Government of Ecuador is looking for passenger flights with Qatar Airways directly.
The current Ecuadorian ambassador in Qatar, Ivonne Baki, revealed days ago that Ecuador is seeking the start of direct flights between the two nations, but it would be something more serious than the potential flights between Ecuador and Russia.
In order to promote the tourist exchange, cultural and commercial, the two nations would meet in advanced negotiations and to tell the ambassador, the only thing missing is the order of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Zani for the flights to start.
A few weeks ago, a large delegation from this country, including the emir, visited Ecuador and in these meetings and series of agreements signed, the study of a passenger route would be of great interest to the flag carrier Qatari.
Interest that would be promoted by the same Ministry of Tourism of Ecuador, from which the statistical and market information required for a potential route would be generated.
It should be noted that Qatar Airways already has a regular operation in the Quito airport with cargo flights and where it operates from 16 December with up to 5 weekly flights from Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires, to later fly to Miami back to Doha.
Is it possible a direct flight Ecuador – Doha?
If we talk about distance and autonomy, it is entirely possible that there is a direct flight, but it could have limitations depending on the departure airport from Ecuador.
Between Guayaquil, as an example airport and Doha there are 8,847 which would be equivalent to 17 hours with 20 minutes, which would make it one of the longest flights in the world.
The Qatar Airways long-haul fleet consists of the following aircraft:
- Airbus A330-200
- Airbus A330-300
- Airbis A340-600
- Airbus A350-900
- Airbus A350-1000
- Airbus A380
- Boeing 777-200LR
- Boeing 777-300ER
- Boeing 787-8
Of all these planes, those that could operate the route are only the Boeing 787 having an autonomy of 9.400 nautical miles.
Now, a direct flight commercially speaking, it would not be feasible due to demand issues between both countries, at least until demand grows and the route matures.
As we talked at the beginning, the flight can be direct, but it would have some limitations if for example, takes off back to Doha from Quito, that is why a scale would be the only alternative.
Qatar Airways is growing in Latin America, where it already operates with flights to Sao Paulo that extend to Buenos Aires with 2 flight hours.
With this, we might think that the airline could plan a flight to for example Venezuela O Panama to extend to Ecuador, so there would be no restrictions both on the way and on the way back and also, the route would be fed with traffic from the 3 countries that would connect.
Why Venezuela or Panama? In order to move traffic between these 3 potential countries countries, bilateral agreements between participating nations must allow for fifth and sixth freedom air traffic rights, opposite case, the airline could not sell the Ecuador section – Panama, which would limit profitability and make the route less attractive.
That could also happen with Colombia or Peru, which could be very interesting as a route, but the autonomy of the aircraft potentially assigned to this route would define the markets to be exploited.
Potential
Qatar is part of oneworld Alliance, which would allow passengers to connect with domestic flights from LATAM Ecuador and its network of international flights that the airline also operates from Ecuador.
On current traffic issues, there is very little data, but in the 2017, only 82 tourists came from this small country.
The potential to attract more travelers from the Middle East is important thanks to the great connection hub that Qatar Airways operates in Doha from where it connects to the whole world and especially Asia..
This potential route could be fed from all of South America with connections to Ecuador and vice versa..
let's wait and see.
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Agree, However, I do not see that there are commercial interests between the two countries.. Let us remember that China has invested a lot in Latin America and there are no airlines with entrepreneurs or investors in our countries., suddenly only Brazil for being on the Atlantic coast due to its proximity to Asia.
Anyway, I believe that the Ecuadorian government should focus more on attracting American airlines, Canadian and European before Asian, Africans or even Oceania.