Qatar Airways to fly to Maputo, MombasaBy XINHUA | Thursday, June 21  2012 at  15:47

Qatar Airways will from November fly to Maputo International Airport three times a week, making it the company's twentieth African destination.

The service will be operated by the airlines long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft.

The company said on Thursday's press release that the Southern African nation is another example of Qatar Airways' commitment to open access to destinations that are largely underserved by international airlines and have great market potential.

The airline has recently launched a daily scheduled service from its Doha hub to Rwandan capital, Kigali. Next month it will start daily flights to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and in August it will begin flying to Mombasa in Kenya.

These are in addition to its current routes to Dar-Es-Salaam and Nairobi. "At Qatar Airways we have a robust planning team that is always busy evaluating and researching potential markets with the underlying mission to open up new destinations that are highly underserved internationally," Qatar Airways chief executive, Akbar Al Baker said.

He also said that the company has identified great opportunities in Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East or Americas, where other carriers dare not venture into.

According to him, "Mozambique is a great example of a market that we believe has great potential linking up with key feeder markets in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world."

Several other companies fly into Maputo, including the Portuguese airline TAP, Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways and Kenya Airways.