Airlines of Helsinki Airport: Qatar Airways

In October 2016, Qatar Airways opened a new daily route between Helsinki and the Qatari capital, Doha. Helsinki Airport gave its A350 a water salute as it touched down in Finland for the first time.

1. The national airline of the State of Qatar is one of the fastest growing in the world. While operations began in 1994, it was relaunched in 1997 under the mandate of His Highness The Father Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Since then Qatar Airways has been awarded Skytrax Airline of the Year three times: in 2011, 2012 and 2015.

2. Qatar Airways has one of the industry’s youngest fleets with an average aircraft age of five years. The carrier was the first airliner to operate the Airbus A350, the Middle East launch customer of the Dreamliner and one of the launch customers of the Super Jumbo A380. With the delivery of the A350 aircraft in December 2014, for which it was the global launch customer, the company became the first airline in the world to operate every family of Airbus’ modern airliner portfolio.

3. Qatar Airways joined oneworld in 2013 and remains the only Gulf airline member in any of the big three global alliances.

4. The airline’s Doha to Auckland route, launched in 2016, is the world’s longest non-stop service at 14,539 km. Trip calculator Travelmath puts the flight time between Qatar and New Zealand at around 18 hours and 34 minutes.

5. In 2013, Qatar Airways entered a landmark sports partnership when it became the main global partner of FC Barcelona. Barça stars Gerard Piqué, Neymar and Lionel Messi have appeared in the airline’s advertisements and in-flight safety videos.

Read about the Sud Aviation Caravelle and its link to Alfred Hitchcock