Qatar Airways suspended its operations in Argentina in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline once offered daily flights to Buenos Aires-Ezeiza on Boeing 777-300ERs with a stopover via Sao Paulo-Guarulhos.
During ITB Berlin in March 2023, the airline announced its return to the Argentine capital along with other destinations in Europe and Asia. Qatar Airways had been scheduled to return to Argentina on December 8 this year, then the airline made changes to bookings and the start date was changed to January 2024.
Currently, the airline has unscheduled flights to Buenos Aires during the entire austral summer season and without any restart date.
From the airline’s website, it is only offering flights from Doha to Buenos Aires via Madrid through a codeshare partnership with Iberia, which recently announced an increase in its operations to the Argentine capital by March 2024.
In addition, the airline made a considerable reduction in its schedule to Brazil with its Sao Paulo-Guarulhos flights. Qatar Airways cancelled the additional service of 4 weekly flights and capacity will be reduced on one of the two daily flights with the change of aircraft from 354-seat Boeing 777-300ER to 272-seat Boeing 777-200LR, a -13.1% seat capacity adjustment.
Prior to the pandemic, Qatar Airways was one of the most important carriers in the Argentina-Asia market where it competed with Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines serving the Argentine capital via Brazil.
Currently, the Buenos Aires – Sao Paulo segment has become congested with the arrival of carriers such as SWISS and Air Canada and Turkish and Ethiopian have increased their capacity to Buenos Aires for the austral summer.
Consulted by Aviacionline, the company indicated that «Some adjustments are being made to Qatar Airways’ Buenos Aires (EZE) and São Paulo (GRU) routes for the 2023-2024 IATA winter season 2023-2024. This involves a delay in the resumption of Qatar Airways’ EZE route until 2024 and an increase in frequencies to GRU postponed to 2024 as well.»
«Customers who have already booked tickets will be informed on how to rebook their travel through Qatar Airways’ network of alliances and partnerships. Qatar Airways continues to operate two daily flights between Doha (DOH) and São Paulo (GRU).»
