Qatar Airways announced expansion of its operations across India with the launch of two new routes and the introduction of additional capacity on existing services.

Beginning April 2007, Chennai in southern India, and Ahmedabad, in western India, will join Qatar Airways' burgeoning Indian network, which already includes non-stop services from Doha to Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Cochin and Trivandrum.

Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, and the Gujarat capital of Ahmedabad, will each be served with seven flights a week from the start of the Summer 2007 flying season.

With immediate effect, the Doha-based carrier has been granted rights by the Indian government to increase capacity to the country's commercial capital of Mumbai and the southern city of Trivandrum with its bigger, state-of-the-art Airbus A330 aircraft - almost doubling the number of seats on both routes, each served daily.

The Cochin and Hyderabad flights will see frequency increase by two and three flights, respectively, to give both cities a daily operation, and each served with a two-class Airbus A321.

Qatar Airways normally operates 30 flights a week between Doha and five cities across India. Under the new bilateral arrangement, the airline will serve India with 49 flights a week. The increase has been made possible following a successful round of recent bilateral negotiations in New Delhi between the governments of Qatar and India.

During the Indian government's current temporary open skies policy for Winter 2006/07, Qatar Airways has been granted rights to operate 42 flights a week, effective from December 15 until January 31, 2007.