Qatar Airways is expanding its presence in China with plans to carry Chinese athletes to the Asian Games.

The airline is the official partner of the China team and will shuttle more than 1200 Chinese athletes, officials, media and spectators on Qatar Airways to Doha for the games scheduled from December 1-15.

In addition, Qatar Airways' Regional Manager for Far East and Australasia, David Chiu, said "Qatar Airways is proud to be the official airline and prestige partner of 15th Asian Games Doha 2006."

In its tenth year of service, Qatar Airways has nonstop flights between Shanghai and Doha five times a week; nonstop flights between Beijing and Doha four times a week; and daily nonstop service from Hong Kong. All the flights currently use Airbus A330s, and the company has plans to increase from current 51 aircraft to 110 aircraft by 2015.

An Airbus 330-200 bound for Doha suffered a double engine flameout on approach into Shanghai on June 1, 2006 after a flight from Doha. Pilots managed to restart both engines and made an emergency landing at Pudong International. The aircraft involved, registered A7-ACJ, was the newest A330 and had just been delivered.

Qatar Airways has 70 global destinations and during the 2004/2005 financial year, Qatar Airways carried 4.6 million passengers, up 35% on the previous 12-month period.

Passenger numbers rose sharply in the 2005/2006 financial period to 6.3 million and are projected to increase to 8 million in the current financial year. Qatar Airways is a launch customer of the twin-deck Airbus A380 'super jumbos' with four aircraft on order.