Summary

• The Romanian airline TAROM has sold its arrival and departure slots at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Qatar Airways.
• With the new slot, the Qatari airline plans to operate daily flights with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
• This means that the airline will be offering around eight flights a day from October 27th.

TAROM the national airline of Romania, has transferred its slots at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Qatar Airways for an undisclosed sum.

Daily LHR slots

As Airport Coordination Limited (ACL) announced on 14 August, TAROM has transferred its slots for the upcoming winter season at LHR to Qatar Airways .

The transaction, as the document shows, was a sale of daily slots, with the Romanian airline transferring its slots on a permanent basis.

TAROM operates its daily flight from LHR to Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport (OTP) with an Airbus A318.

In addition, the Romanian airline’s flight had a scheduled arrival time of 14:05 local time (UTC +1) and a scheduled departure time of 14:50.

Changing the arrival and departure times

However, Qatar Airways requested a change in the arrival and departure times for the landing and take-off of its flight from LHR to Doha Hamad International Airport (DOH) .

Following the transfer, which will take effect on October 27 and cover the entire International Air Transport Association (IATA) winter season until March 29, 2025, the Qatari airline’s aircraft will arrive at LHR at 23:00 and depart at 23:05.

Qatar Airways plans to use flight codes QR109 and QR110 for its inbound and outbound flights to/from LHR.

The airline has also announced that it will resume flights with the Boeing 777-300ER equipped with 354 seats.

Data from Ch-aviation shows that Qatar Airways has 28 777-300ER aircraft with 42 business class seats and 312 economy class seats. The airline’s other 777-300ERs are configured as follows:

• six seats in First Class, 53 Business Class and 235 Economy Class
• 24 business and 388 economy class seats
• 37 business and 302 economy class seats
• 42 business and 316 economy class seats

Eight daily flights to LHR

While the latest data does not reflect Qatar Airways’ acquisition of the slots, aviation analytics firm Cirium said the airline had scheduled 49 weekly flights between LHR and DOH in November.

With the addition of an additional seven weekly flight schedules, the airline should normally operate eight daily flights on this route.

The current flight schedule shows that Qatar Airways has scheduled seven flights on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, and six and eight flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays respectively.

In addition to Qatar Airways, British Airways has scheduled 14 weekly flights from LHR to DOH, bringing the route’s total capacity to 63 weekly departures and 21,669 weekly seats in November.

In addition, the Qatari airline offers ten weekly flights from London Gatwick Airport (LGW) and DOH.

With the introduction of an additional daily flight between London (UK) and Doha (Qatar), there will be a total of 80 weekly departures and 26,687 seats per week on this route from 27 October.

The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but the slot machines are likely to have a hefty price tag. In 2016, Oman Air reportedly paid Air France $75 million for two slots at London Heathrow Airport, which has been experiencing capacity constraints for decades. .

The airport’s plan to build an additional runway has been in the works for some time, but opposition from local communities has made it difficult for LHR to move beyond the planning stage for the construction of a third runway.