Summary
- Qatar Airways plans to use Boeing 777-200LRs to 24 destinations from July to September.
- Only São Paulo is exclusively served by the QSuite-equipped variant, with a double daily operation.
- Dammam, Miami, Nairobi, São Paulo, and the Seychelles account for three-quarters of the carrier’s 777-200LR services.
Global airlines usually have some aircraft types that get little attention. Qatar Airways is no exception, especially its older widebodies, particularly the Airbus A330-200 and A330-300 and the Boeing 777-200LR (‘Long Range’). The oneworld carrier has seven 777-200LRs, all active and all with 42 QSuites, while two aircraft have been retired. Most of the seven aircraft were delivered between 2009 and 2011.
The 777-200LR: a two-second summary
The -200LR entered revenue service 18 years ago, in March 2006. While the variant is renowned for its ultra-long range – that is what it was designed for – it comes at a significant cost.

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It has a 17% higher maximum take-off weight than the 777-200ER – the result of extra fuel capacity – but both variants have about the same number of seats. There’s also a 6-7% increase in the empty weight. The difference is even starker compared to newer types, especially the A350 and 787, which Qatar Airways operates.
Unless the 777-200LR’s range is needed, which it isn’t for Qatar Airways and perhaps any operator nowadays, given newer alternatives, it’s suboptimal and expensive, especially if the fuel price is high. However, it could be offset by much lower ownership costs than newer equipment – as is probably true with this Middle East operator.]

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The top five routes: July-September
Qatar Airways plans to use its 200LRs to 24 destinations from its Doha hub from July to September. Many of them will see the variant very infrequently. Indeed, just one route – Doha to São Paulo GRU – has 40% of the departures. When the rest of the top five routes are included, it rises to three out of four.
Image: GCMap
São Paulo is the only route on which the 200LR is exclusively flown in the three summer months. It is the only one with consistently more than a daily operation. It is flown twice daily, with flights leaving Qatar at 01:20/01:45 and 08:05/08:30. They arrive back at 17:15 and 22:20 the next day. Naturally, the schedule is designed for connectivity over Doha.
- Doha-Dammam: weekly to four weekly 200LR flights (plus flights on other equipment)
- Doha-Miami: three times weekly (plus flights on other equipment)
- Doha-São Paulo: double daily
- Doha-Nairobi: weekly to four weekly (plus flights on other equipment)
- Doha-Seychelles: twice-weekly to daily (plus flights on other equipment)
What about other routes?
The remaining 19 links from July to September have between one and 20 outbound flights on the 200LR. Two of them have just one departure: Paris CDG (July 18 only) and Muscat (July 4).
Between July 1 and July 9, the day of writing, the short hop to Muscat had Qatar Airways flights on the A330-200, 737 MAX 8, A330-300, A320ceo, 200LR, 777-300ER, and 787-9.
Image: GCMap
Notice London Heathrow. Qatar Airways has scheduled 16 200LR departures on July 4, 6, 7, and 11; August 8, 12, and 15; and September 2, 5, 12, 13, 14, 19, 23, 26, and 27. The variant is also scheduled on eight occasions in October.