Qatar Airways and Hamad International Airport Gear Up for Winter Peak with Expanded Operations

From yoga sessions at The Orchard and a dedicated customer service area to new aircraft joining the fleet, Qatar Airways is rolling out changes across its passenger experience and operations ahead of the winter season, despite recent regional disruptions.

Passengers move through check-in, luggage disappears onto conveyor belts, and aircraft line up for takeoff every few minutes — the visible rhythm of any major airport. Behind it, though, runs a round-the-clock operation, and this winter the world’s busiest aviation hubs are bracing for an even heavier load.

Qatar Airways opened parts of that operation to view on Wednesday, giving access to its Integrated Operations Centre (IOC), aircraft maintenance facilities and other areas at Hamad International Airport (HIA), ahead of the 2026-27 winter travel season. The airline expects to carry around four million passengers this winter, operating over 510 flights a day across a network of more than 170 destinations.

A different kind of airport experience

At the centre of HIA sits The Orchard, the airport’s 6,000-square-metre indoor tropical garden, usually a place travellers sit beneath trees, grab a coffee or take a break between flights. Now the space is also being used in new ways, such as the Travel Recovery Studio, a complimentary yoga session running at the Concourse C Orchard from 6 September to 25 October, giving passengers another option to unwind during their journey.

Elsewhere in the terminal, Qatar Airways has also introduced a Customer Support Center, a dedicated area, creating a clearer point for passengers who need assistance. Passengers travelling with other airlines are taken care of at the transfer desks, in coordination with the airport team.

The changes come as ground teams prepare for heavier winter traffic. Qatar Airways says it has increased staffing, optimised operational resources, added mobile kiosks and activated additional check-in facilities to handle demand. Technology is taking on more of the workload too, with HIA now letting the face do some of the heavy lifting. Its biometric Fast Pass system, launched on 6 July, scans passengers’ faces to help speed up their journey through the airport, with around 27,000 passengers enrolled so far across more than 700 Fast Pass touchpoints at HIA.

More aircraft, more destinations

The biggest change this winter, however, will happen in the skies. Qatar Airways is expanding its network to more than 170 destinations, with additional frequencies and returning routes across Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. By December, the airline expects to operate nearly 1,800 weekly frequencies.

The expansion is also being supported by changes to the fleet. Qatar Airways is preparing to welcome its first Airbus A321LR aircraft by the end of 2026, featuring a new cabin configuration and Business Class.

Where the aircraft go behind closed doors

Away from the polished terminal floors is a very different side of Qatar Airways. Inside its technical operations facilities, aircraft can undergo everything from routine inspections to full structural work. Abdulaziz Saoud Heidous, the Senior Manager of Supply Chain Operations for Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) explained how systems are programmed to automatically deploy items when work is due.

The room keeping track of it all

Inside the airline’s IOC, screens and live data provide teams with a picture of what is happening across the network at any given moment. Qatar Airways Chief Operating Officer Abdullah Ali said the airline drew on experience from previous disruptions, while operations at HIA were quickly mobilised to accommodate passengers and support the wider response.