Qatar Airways hoping to launch Belfast flights, says the CEO

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• " says:

  3 May3 May 04:14

  BA and EI services switched from Belfast International (BFS near Antrim) to George Best City (BHD on harbour) ages ago, so surprised there are still issues.

  Runway much larger at BFS and plenty of spare capacity.

  But can’t see Qatar making a success of things – even with lavish tax payer funded “incentives.”

  Issue is Dublin just down motorway, which competes for Northern Ireland long haul traffic.

  • Michael says:

    3 May3 May 06:30

    EI moves from BFS (Belfast International) to BHD (BELFAST City) around 2012 (after 5 years there) and BFS took them to court for alleged breach of contract. BA left BFS back in 2002 when they canned the route in the post 9/11 downturn. They took over the BHD route from BD in their takeover in 2012. Both operate from BHD on a rationalised schedule with BA codeshares on EI services.

    BFS is potentially a good market with lots of BA traffic transiting LHR currently. Yes, DUB is just down the road with EK, EY and TK all established. However there’s no APD on non-stop long haul flights from NI and the weak pound makes BFS originating flights more interesting to ROI passengers.

    • Londonbus says:

      3 May3 May 09:29

      I’d observe that certainly point-to-point it makes no sense. However. QR is all about connecting feed – and the network would give Belfast good opportunities. Maybe this is one of those routes which will work with A350/A787?

• Aeronaut says:

  3 May3 May 05:25

  Was this your first ever visit to Cymru, Rob?

  • Rob says:

    3 May3 May 07:31

    First time in Cardiff, yes.

    • Andrew Harrison says:

      3 May3 May 10:26

      Probably why you wouldn’t know that the St Davids Hotel in Cardiff is 5 star.

      • Rob says:

        3 May3 May 10:29

        It can have five stars on the door, doesn’t mean it is a five star hotel.

        It was VERY amusing watching Al Baker announce (in the St David’s, where he had stayed the night before) that Cardiff doesn’t have any good hotels and he would like to build one.

      • Lady London says:

        3 May3 May 19:56

        Just as well he probably wouldn’t have been staying the following night as well, then.

• Kip says:

  3 May3 May 06:27

  There’s currently a 10% discount on QR flights from MAN with promo code MANQR15.

• Jimbo says:

  3 May3 May 06:33

  On the Harrods offer – I see that it’s limited to the first 12,000 amex holders who make use of not. Will amex tell us when that threshold is reached / withdraw the offer or so you just have to incur the spend and cross your fingers?

  • Anna says:

    3 May3 May 06:53

    When you register for the offer it tells you if it’s saved to your card.

    • Stu N says:

      3 May3 May 09:07

      The offer will disappear when they have hit 12,000 registrations – it then sits there until either you use it or it expires.

      • Stu N says:

        3 May3 May 09:11

        Sorry – that’s not clear at all. The offer will sits in the available offers list until you register it to your card. Once 12,000 people have registered it, it stops being available.

        If you’ve registered it, it sits in “my offers” and will stay there until you use it or it expires.

• Javgil says:

  3 May3 May 07:13

  ‘in Cardiff – there are no five-star hotels at present‘

  Either you or Al Baker is wrong here, there’s been at least one since the 90’s

  • Rob says:

    3 May3 May 07:26

    We met at The Principal St David’s and Al Baker was staying there. He clearly hates it.

• Kipto says:

  3 May3 May 07:29

  St David’s Hotel in Cardiff Bay is a five star hotel.

  • Rob says:

    3 May3 May 07:32

    We were in that hotel. Al Baker says it is 4 star. Based on what I saw I would agree.

    • JPR says:

      3 May3 May 09:28

      The only time I was there I was nearly overcome by the smell of chlorine from the pool, even in the huge reception area. The room was on the ground floor and almost the entire view was blocked by a ramp of some sort. Staff very unhelpful.

    • Waribai says:

      3 May3 May 10:43

      Interesting. I remember on here a few years ago someone claiming there was no point at staying at the international chains since in Turkey since you could stay at a particular independent 5 star hotel for a few quid a night.
      A quick look at the photos on tripadvisor showed that although the hotel may have claimed it was 5 star, it was nowhere near the standards of the international 5 star establishments.

      Is there any organisation which decides whether a hotel is 5 star or not?

      • Rob says:

        3 May3 May 11:21

        No.

      • James says:

        3 May3 May 13:34

        Hotels in the UK star ratings are awarded and managed by four Hotel rating boards: The AA, Visit Britain, Visit Scotland and Visit Wales
        Both the AA and Visit Britain give St David’s 5 stars, which is what counts, not Al Baker’s, or anyone else’s made up star rating.

        • Rob says:

          3 May3 May 16:15

          Not really. His point is that, irrespective of the star rating, St David’s is simply not of the sort of quality that guests at – say – a Four Seasons would expect. This impacts the willingness of some people to visit Cardiff if they do not believe there is accommodation of a suitable standard.

• Will says:

  3 May3 May 07:31

  I’m confused. Hasn’t the glorious leader of the free state of Qatar’s airline just hinted at some pretty gloriously bad financials for last year. How come the expansion drive to obscure places continues?

  • Genghis says:

    3 May3 May 07:39

    Is profit the only motive?

    • Will says:

      3 May3 May 07:45

      Indeed

  • John says:

    3 May3 May 07:51

    The losses came from the Saudi problem and having to rebook everyone while losing some lucrative income streams, expanding is a way to mitigate that.

  • eBungle says:

    3 May3 May 08:24

    I guess the question is, how much is the Welsh tax payer “supporting” to let their first minister prance about on stage?

    The real question is, with Welsh public finances struggling is supporting a Qatar long haul route realy the best use of tax money?

    • Rob says:

      3 May3 May 10:05

      It isn’t a bad use of money. Not directly, but there is a lot of indirect benefit if it works.

      It is certainly a great deal for travel bloggers who can now apply to Qatar Airways for a free trip to the UK, funded from the ‘marketing support’ fund. That’s how I got my business class trip to Ras Al Khaimah two years ago.

• Anonymous user no 554 says:

  3 May3 May 08:03

  Any recent experience of self- referring for a new Amex? Is it worth the risk of referring from my own Platinum instead of partner’s card? 18,000 MRs vs 9,000 Avios with risk of nothing…?

  • Laineyling says:

    3 May3 May 08:23

    My husband and I tried this in Jan 208 and it didn’t work. We used his plat card to try and refer me for a BAPP. I followed the link and selected other cards. We didn’t get the referral , amex said I didn’t go through the link, followed up with calls but nothing.

    Not sure if anyone else has had success recently.

    • Crafty says:

      3 May3 May 08:36

      That isn’t a self referral, that’s a normal referral. It should have worked so sounds like a link tracking problem.

      Anonymous user is referring to one referring oneself (to exploit poor programming in Amex IT).

    • Anna says:

      3 May3 May 17:08

      I got the Platinum about 2 months ago, done 4 MR referrals where the points have appeared in a week or less, one BA where the referral points still haven’t appeared 4 weeks on. Queried it and they said it takes up to 10 weeks!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    3 May3 May 10:01

    2 weeks ago

  • Harpreet says:

    3 May3 May 10:21

    We did this last month and it appeared to work fine. Got the 18k bonus.

    • Rob says:

      3 May3 May 10:50

      I self- referred from Plat to SPG about a month ago. No problems receiving 18k MR.

      • Barry says:

        3 May3 May 13:50

        How exactly do you self refer? Do you just send the referral link to yourself? Do you have to use a different email address for it to work?

        Planning on upgrading to the Platinum next month and then self referring to the BAPP once I’ve qualified for the bonus before cancelling.

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