Qatar Airways is starting 2016 with an expansion programme across Eastern Europe, including Croatia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. Added frequencies and upscaled capacity will also see more cargo opportunities to many of these destinations.

Flights to Zagreb and Budapest are increasing to a 10-weekly service from a current daily service from 3 April and 3 July respectively, while flights to Baku are increasing to an 11-weekly service, also from a current daily scheduled flight, from 27 March.

Qatar Airways is also launching new direct flights from Doha to Belgrade from 16 March, a destination currently served by the airline via Sofia, enhancing the journey time to and from the capital of Serbia on the four-weekly schedule.

In response to increasing demand, one of the airline’s double-daily services to Moscow Domodedovo International Airport have been upgraded from an A320 to a B787 Dreamliner while flights to Warsaw will be upgraded from an A320  to an A330 aircraft from 1 July this year.

Qatar Airways group chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “Qatar Airways is expanding rapidly, not only in terms of new places and our network offering, but also with the service we offer. Complementing our service in the skies are our transfer facilities at the state-of-the-art Hamad International Airport, coupled with the experience of flying on board one of the youngest fleets in the industry.”