Qatar Airways has announced the resumption of its longest-ever route, with nonstop service to Auckland, New Zealand (AKL) beginning later this year.

[DOH,AKL]

A Brief History

Qatar Airways initially launched service to Auckland in December 2016. The route was served by the airline's Boeing 777-200LR fleet and for a time, was the longest flight in the world until it was suspended during the early months of the pandemic in 2020.

Qatar Airways resumed service to Auckland in March 2022 with the larger Boeing 777-300ER, however not with the nonstop service that it previously offered the city.

From then until now, the airline has combined its services to Adelaide, Australia (ADL), and Auckland on the same flight. QR-914 departs Doha at 8:30 p.m. local time, landing in Adelaide around 3:55 p.m. local time after roughly 12 hours of flight.

After a three-hour layover in Adelaide, QR-914 continued onwards to Auckland, departing Adelaide at 6:20 pm local time and arriving in Auckland at 12:50 am local time after a roughly four-hour flight.

Upon landing in Auckland, the 777 would lay over there for a lengthy 15 hours before operating QR-915 back to Doha via Adelaide. QR-915 would depart Auckland at 4:55 p.m., arriving in Adelaide at 7:40 p.m. Then, the flight would depart Adelaide at 9:40 p.m., touching down in Doha around 4:40 a.m.

Passengers traveling between Doha and Auckland would endure nearly 19-20 total hours of travel each way, including the three-hour layover in Adelaide in between.

Return of the Nonstop

Effective September 1st, 2023, Qatar Airways will once again serve New Zealand's largest city with daily nonstop service from Doha.

Instead of the Boeing 777, the newly-resumed nonstop service will be operated by the Airbus A350-1000. This aircraft has 327 seats in a two-class configuration, with 46 QSuite Business Class seats and 281 Economy Class seats.

The new flight schedule for Qatar's nonstop Auckland resumption is as follows:

*Local time

With this new nonstop service, Qatar will end its current fifth-freedom service between Adelaide and Auckland. However, nonstop 777-300ER service to Adelaide will continue as normal.

As Qatar Airways heavily specializes in connecting passengers from one end of the world to the other, the new Auckland flights are timed so that they can better serve passengers connecting in Doha from and to places like Europe.

Once Qatar resumes nonstop Doha to Auckland service, the route will be the third-longest in the world as it traverses over 9,000 miles.