Qatar Airways has become the first airline to fly the state-of-the-art Airbus A350 to Greece.
The airline temporarily upgraded its current triple-daily service to Athens to an ultra-modern A350 on Monday, with the arrival of the flight greeted by a water canon salute at Athens International Airport.
Qatar Airways Group chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are extremely proud to be the first airline to fly the Airbus A350 to Greece.
“Athens is a key destination on our European network, and we are delighted to be able to provide our passengers travelling to Greece today with the ultimate comfort and services on board one of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the sky.
“We will have more good news for the Greek market later this year with the upcoming launch of direct services to Thessaloniki, offering our passengers even more opportunity to explore this majestic country.”
Qatar Airways was the global launch customer of the Airbus A350 in January 2015.
The award-winning airline has the largest fleet of this aircraft type of any airline in the world and currently operates 22 A350 aircraft across its global network to destinations including Adelaide, Brussels, Geneva, Singapore and Tokyo.
It was the first airline to fly the A350 to the United States and to Australia.
The airline will also shortly be the launch customer for the state-of-the-art A350-1000.
The award-winning airline in March will launch non-stop flights to Thessaloniki, its second destination in Greece.
The four-times weekly new service between Doha and Thessaloniki will be operated by an Airbus A320 aircraft.