Qatar Airways Launches Doha to Caracas via Bogotá on Boeing 777-200LR

Route overview

Qatar Airways began scheduled service between Doha and Caracas on 4 November 2026, serving the Venezuelan capital as the second stop of a triangular Doha–Bogotá–Caracas–Doha rotation. The service operates twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Sundays, with a Boeing 777-200LR. According to the airline, it becomes the first Gulf carrier to serve Venezuela and the first to operate nonstop between the Middle East and both Bogotá and Caracas.

Flight QR783 departs Doha at 07:35 and arrives in Bogotá at 16:25 local time. After a 90-minute turnaround it continues to Caracas, departing at 17:55 and arriving at 21:00. The return leg leaves Caracas at 23:30 and lands in Doha at 20:35 the following day, a scheduled block of 14 hours 5 minutes over roughly 12,265 km nonstop. The outbound Doha–Bogotá sector is longer still, at about 13,280 km and 16 hours 50 minutes of block time.

The launch had originally been scheduled for 2 September 2026. AeroRoutes reported in August that Qatar Airways had closed reservations for all dates between 2 September and 1 November, with bookings reopening from 4 November under the schedule now in operation. The inaugural was marked in Doha by Venezuela’s ambassador to Qatar, Carlos José Mata Figueroa, alongside Qatar’s ambassador to Venezuela, Salman Al-Khulaifi, and Qatar Airways’ vice president for aeropolitical and corporate affairs, Sheikh Jassim Fahad Al-Thani.

Airline network context

Caracas and Bogotá are the airline’s 16th and 17th destinations in the Americas. Qatar Airways entered South America in 2010 with São Paulo and, according to its inaugural press release, serves more than 170 destinations across its network this winter season. The Doha arrival time of 20:35 is positioned for the evening connecting bank, with the airline citing onward connections to Australia, China, Japan, Lebanon, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

The Colombian stop is supported by an expanded codeshare with LATAM, which now includes LATAM Airlines Colombia. Qatar Airways places its QR code on LATAM-operated domestic flights from Bogotá to 17 points, including Medellín, Cali, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Pereira, Santa Marta and San Andrés Island. No equivalent domestic feed has been announced for the Venezuelan side of the rotation.

About the aircraft

The Boeing 777-200LR is the longest-range member of the 777 family. Boeing lists a maximum range of around 15,800 km (8,555 nautical miles), achieved with General Electric GE90-115BL engines, a higher maximum take-off weight than the 777-200ER and optional auxiliary fuel tanks in the rear cargo hold. The type was built in small numbers and is used by its operators on the longest and thinnest sectors in their networks. Qatar Airways took delivery of its first 777-200LR in 2009 and has deployed the variant on its longest flying, including the Doha–Auckland nonstop launched in 2017.

Qatar Airways configures its 777-200LR fleet with 272 seats, comprising 42 business class seats in a 2-2-2 layout and 230 economy seats. At two rotations a week, the schedule offers 544 seats each way between Doha and the two South American cities. The sequencing of the rotation also places the long eastbound departure at sea-level Caracas rather than at Bogotá, which sits at roughly 2,550 metres, where take-off weight on a 16-hour sector would be constrained.

About the airports

Hamad International Airport is Qatar Airways’ hub and the sole commercial airport serving Doha. In bigairports.com data the airport shows 201 routes. The densest links are regional and European: Dubai leads with 1,585 flights in the dataset, followed by Barcelona (1,321), Madrid (544) and Amsterdam (475). Hong Kong (355) is the busiest Asian point, and Riyadh, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi each see three operating carriers. The Caracas service adds Venezuela as a new country on the departures board.

Maiquetía Simón Bolívar International Airport lies on the Caribbean coast in La Guaira state, about 25 km north of central Caracas, at close to sea level. The dataset records 43 routes from the airport, the majority domestic. Porlamar on Margarita Island is served by six operators with 140 flights, Maracaibo by six operators with 120 flights, and Gran Roque in the Los Roques archipelago by three operators with 150 flights. The only long-haul route of scale is Madrid, with six operators and 449 flights, far ahead of any other international point. Regional connections include Bogotá (five operators, 67 flights), Panama City, Santo Domingo and Curaçao. Doha becomes the airport’s first scheduled link to the Gulf.

Market context and competition

There is no nonstop competition on either Doha–Caracas or Doha–Bogotá. Venezuela’s long-haul market is concentrated on the Madrid corridor, where Spanish and Venezuelan carriers compete, and connecting traffic between Venezuela and Asia or the Middle East has historically routed through Madrid, Istanbul or Panama City. Turkish Airlines serves Caracas from Istanbul via Havana, making it the only other carrier offering a single-plane link between the city and a hub east of Europe.

Within the Gulf, Emirates serves Bogotá via Miami but has no Venezuelan service, and Etihad flies to neither country. The Qatar Airways rotation therefore gives Doha a monopoly on direct Gulf access to Caracas, while on the Bogotá leg it competes for connecting passengers with Emirates and with European hubs such as Madrid, Paris and Frankfurt. Madrid is also the common point in the live data at both ends of the rotation: it is the second-busiest long-haul destination from Doha by flights and the dominant international route from Caracas.

With 544 weekly seats per direction, the operation is modest by Qatar Airways’ standards. The airline has not announced frequency increases or an onward schedule beyond the current winter season.