Chiang Mai on Wednesday established its longest international air link with the arrival of Qatar Airways' maiden non-stop flight from Doha.
Qatar is the latest international carrier to serve the northern Thai city, one day after no-frills Vietjet Air started regular flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai became the fourth Thai city served by the flag carrier of Qatar, which has made bolder moves than other major Gulf carriers to strengthen its Thai footprint.
Qatar on Wednesday confirmed the earlier-announced plan to embark on a fifth non-stop route, Doha-U-tapao, starting on Jan 28, 2018. That service will offer four flights a week on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with 22 seats in business class and 232 seats in economy.
Chiang Mai, as one of the hosts of slew of new international routes commenced by Qatar this year, is served four times per week from Doha with an Airbus A330-200 wide-body jet with 24 seats in business class and 236 seats in economy.
In his arrival statement, Qatar chief executive Akbar Al Baker said the Doha-Chiang Mai service launch reflects increasing demand from the airline's customers for more high-quality leisure destinations.
The arrival of Qatar to Chiang Mai was hailed by Thai authorities as giving a major boost to the province's tourism, especially by creating direct tourist flows from the airline's Doha hub linked by more than 150 global destinations formed in Qatar's network.
Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said Qatar's Chiang Mai launch will support TAT's drive to draw traffic from the country's key tourism markets in Europe, the US, throughout the Middle East into Chiang Mai via Doha.
"This new route is proof that working with the right airlines on strategic campaigns to promote our country is crucial to attracting tourists to Thailand," Mr Yuthasak said. "We believe that together with Qatar Airways we can access more tourists looking to experience Chiang Mai's unique and authentic culture, as well as increase prosperity for the region.
"Next year we look forward to deepening our ties with Qatar Airways when the airline adds a fifth Thai gateway to its route network with the start of flights from Doha to U-tapao, near Pattaya."
Monthanik Rakngam, general manager of Chiang Mai airport, which welcomes more than 2 million visitors a year, said Qatar's arrival will enhance the airport as a major gateway to northern Thailand.
There are 21 international airlines serving Chiang Mai airport, connecting to 24 overseas cities. Many of them are in China as Chiang Mai is one of the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists.
However, the Doha-Chiang Mai flights will be operated by Qatar on a seasonal basis, with the current time frame running from Dec 12 until May 2018, and will resume once again for the winter 2018 season in October 2018.
Qatar's Chiang Mai service will take the airline's total weekly frequency to Thailand to 60 flights a week, from 35 times a week to Bangkok, 14 times a week to Phuket and daily to Krabi commencing on Dec 1 this year.
Qatar has more connections with Thailand than its Gulf rivals Emirates and Etihad Airways, which both concentrate on serving Bangkok from their home bases in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
In the last four months, Qatar has boosted its services with its ambitious expansion programme, which has seen destinations in Eastern Europe expanding to include Skopje in Macedonia, Prague in the Czech Republic and Kiev in Ukraine, as well as Adana in Turkey.
Qatar said it will be adding flights to more destinations in 2018, including Canberra, Australia; Cardiff in the UK; and U-tapao.
Now in its 20th year of operation, Qatar Airways has a modern fleet of more than 200 aircraft flying to business and leisure destinations across six continents.
