High level meetings between Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker and senior officials of Catalonia have taken place in Barcelona on the back of yesterday’s announcement that the airline is to be a strategic partner of football giants FC Barcelona.

Al Baker met with the President of Catalonia, the Honourable Artur Mas, and Mayor of Barcelona, the Honourable Xavier Trias, to discuss new trade, business and investment opportunities.

During the courtesy visits, Al Baker said that the airline planned to further expand its operations in Barcelona – the Catalonian capital – from the current 10 flights each week to double daily, helping boosting trade and business links between the State of Qatar and Catalonia. 

“Extra frequencies would be a tremendous boost to the economy of Barcelona and the surrounding areas, helping create new jobs and also bring more tourists to this fabulous city,” commented Al Baker afterwards.

“When Qatar Airways launched flights to Barcelona in June 2010, we started off with daily services using narrow-body aircraft, gradually increasing to larger planes offering twice as much capacity. And we then improved capacity further to the current 10-flights-a-week, which clearly shows our commitment to Barcelona and Catalonia as a whole.

“Qatar Airways looks forward to working with FC Barcelona through our new strategic partnership that starts this summer, giving us even more opportunities to connect the loyal fan base of Barca in Catalonia and millions of the club’s fans around the world.”

Both the President of Catalonia and Mayor of Barcelona expressed their excitement about the partnership between Qatar Airways and FC Barcelona, bringing in great benefits to the renowned football club and Catalan region.

They were also delighted to hear Qatar Airways’ plans to increase capacity to Barcelona as the new services would benefit the people of Catalonia, helping create more jobs in the process.



Qatar Airways offers travellers from Barcelona an exciting network of destinations to fly to, to cities across the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific via its Doha hub. The airline operates a modern fleet of 121 aircraft to over 125 destinations globally, including destinations in Europe, North America and South America.

In addition, Qatar Airways operates daily non-stop flights between Spain’s capital city Madrid and Doha. 

Over the next few weeks and months, Qatar Airways will launch scheduled flights to a diverse portfolio of new routes, including Chicago, USA (April 10); Salalah, Oman (May 22); Chengdu, China, at a date to be confirmed, and many more start-ups to be announced.