Qatar Airways today reaffirmed its commitment to India praising local authorities for helping it strengthen air links between the State of Qatar and cities across India with two new routes launched over the past few weeks.

Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said India remained, and will continue to be, a key market for Qatar Airways as part of the airline’s long-term commitment to one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Speaking in the northern Indian city of Jalandhar today to celebrate the recent launch of flights to nearby Amritsar, Al Baker said India was the largest single market served by the airline.

Qatar Airways’ maiden flight to the northern Indian state of Punjab landed in the holy city of Amritsar on October 12. Two weeks later, the airline launched scheduled flights to Goa, heralding the arrival of Qatar Airways as the only full-service scheduled global carrier to both destinations.

With Amritsar and Goa both served four-times-a-week from the airline’s Doha hub, Qatar Airways has increased capacity to India to 64 flights a week spread across 10 cities. These include daily non-stop flights between Doha and Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode.

Qatar Airways currently operates a modern fleet of 71 aircraft to 84 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Far East and North America.

“With 10 cities now served across India, Qatar Airways has built up a formidable network in this wonderful country,” said Al Baker, addressing media at a packed press conference in Jalandhar.

“Qatar and India share a very special relationship and friendship, and we applaud the local authorities for developing air links to this country over the years and help spread our award-winning Five Star service to more points. This has helped Qatar Airways facilitate trade and business between the two countries and beyond, as well as providing a vital air bridge connecting friends and family between India and rest of the world.

“Our new Amritsar flights will greatly help commerce and industry in the city and the neighbouring business capitals of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Chandigarh for the export of textiles, sports goods and food, manufactured and produced in Punjab, to the Middle East and beyond.”

Qatar Airways will celebrate the Amritsar flights with an outdoor gala dinner held at Bath Castle in Jalandhar later this evening.

Home to the Golden Temple – the holy place of worship for Sikhs – Al Baker explained that the Amritsar route would cater for the well travelled Punjabi community worldwide.He said: “Punjabis have firmly established their home and work in cities across the world, yet have had very limited air access to Punjab for many years with the main option being to fly into Delhi and travel by road or train for the long journey to this part of north India.

“We are delighted to offer this new flight and make it more convenient and accessible for the travelling public.”

Qatar Airways’ passengers flying from North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East to Doha have excellent onward late evening connections to Amritsar with the return flight being early morning departures. The airline is operating the route four-times-a-week non-stop from Qatar’s capital city using a two-class Airbus A320, with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 seats in Economy Class.

Al Baker said these were exciting times for Qatar Airways, with three new routes in the space of less than two months at a time when the global airline industry was scaling back capacity and holding back on route expansion.

“We have a robust long-term strategy to continue developing our modern fleet and opening up new routes, undeterred by the current economic situation worldwide,” he said.

“Following the launch of flights to Amritsar and Goa, we look forward to beginning services to Australia on December 6 with non-stop flights between Doha and Melbourne.

Qatar Airways has ambitious plans to develop its international network further during 2010 by adding Sydney as its second Australian destination as well as two further cities in Europe.