Posted By: Tom Hustler

By JANE WARDELL, AP Business WriterMon Nov 6, 1:51 PM ET

LONDON - Qatar Airways plans seven new routes for 2007, including its first destination in the United States, but cautioned Monday that delays in plane deliveries will keep it behind schedule on expanding its network.
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Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker blamed "protracted negotiations" with rival planemakers Airbus and Boeing Co. for the carrier's failure to meet its target of opening 10 new routes each year.

"By the end of next year, we will still be seven destinations short of our what we had envisioned to operate by the end of 2007," Al Baker told a news conference at the World Travel Market in London.

Al Baker said Qatar now expects to receive its two ordered A380 superjumbos from Airbus later than planned, with the first in late 2010 or early 2011 and the second in late 2011 or early 2012. The carrier initially delayed the delivery itself from 2007 to 2009 because of its planned move to a new, larger international airport in Doha.

Last month, the planemaker doubled the program's production delay to two years and said the holdup would wipe out 4.8 billion euros ($6 billion) from its parent company's profit over four years.

Qatar has two firm orders for the A380 and options for another two.

"We are disappointed. As with any airline, it was built into our flight plan for operations to certain destinations," said Al Baker.

"Now this will not happen. Now we have to find airplanes that will be doing those services," he added. He did not elaborate on where those airplanes would come from.

Al Baker said that Qatar had a "strong compensation clause" in its contract with Airbus, but declined to comment further.

The airline said it will use the Airbus A340-600 on the new daily route between Doha and New York, which it expects to begin operation next summer. Two A340-600s are already in operation on the airline's Doha to London Heathrow route.

Other new destinations include the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam, Lagos in Nigeria, Bali in Indonesia and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Al Baker said that two more destinations in Europe — another in Northern Europe and the airline's first in Eastern Europe — would also be added in 2007.

However, he added that he expected high oil prices to be an ongoing concern.

Crude oil was trading at just above $60 a barrel on Monday, a significant retreat from a summertime high above $78 a barrel.

"We only have to have a strong winter in the United States or Europe for the price to go up again," he said.

Al Baker said that the airline expected to carry 8.4 million passengers in the financial year ending next March and reiterated forecasts that the airline would break even by 2011.

Al Baker said that the airline remained interested in traveling to Australia, but continued to be thwarted by Australian government controls on the airline sector.

"We would like to go to Australia, but we are being restricted by the government of Australia who are putting unacceptable hurdles in the place of Qatar Airways to get rights," he said. "We do understand where these hurdles are being generated, but I wouldn't like to say in front of journalists."

The airline also revealed that its $90 million Premium Terminal at Doha International Airport, the first stand-alone terminal dedicated to first- and business-class passengers in the world, will open by the end of this month.

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