AKIPRESS.COM - Qatar Airways will launch its first non-stop commercial passenger flights to Kazakhstan a result of the Kazakh policy to increase air traffic and attract new foreign carriers, the Caspian News said.

Regular flights that will connect Hamad International Airport in Doha with airports in Nur-Sultan and Almaty will begin on March 30 and April 1, respectively. Flights between Doha and Nur-Sultan will run twice per week, while flights connecting Doha and Almaty will run four times a week.

Non-stop flights will be operated on an Airbus 320 jet, according to the Kazakhstan Civil Aviation. Inaugural flights, however, will be carried out on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, a long-haul, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine airplane made by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Tickets for the new route have already gone on sale. The cost of an economy class ticket for both routes will start at $349.85, while a business class ticket’s price starts at $959.07. The total flight duration from Doha to Almaty will be 4 hours and 35 minutes, while from Doha to Nur-Sultan the aircraft will be in operation for 5 hours.

An agreement on air traffic between the two countries to create a legal basis for direct flights was signed in November last year by Talgat Lastayev, the head of the Kazakh Civil Aviation Committee and his counterpart from Qatar, Abdullah Nasser Turki al-Subai.

According to the document, Qatar Airways is allowed to operate the “fifth freedom” flights (also known as add-on or tag flights) to Kazakhstan, meaning if Qatar Airways operates a flight connecting Doha, Nur-Sultan and Tokyo, passengers do not need to buy a ticket for the entire route and can just buy a ticket for the Nur-Sultan — Tokyo flight.