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After much speculation as to what Qatar Airways would do with its air rights to Australia, the Doha-based carrier yesterday announced it would fly to both Sydney and Melbourne.

Announced at a briefing at ITB Berlin, Qatar says the new services will come online in time for this year’s Northern Winter schedules when more Boeing 777-200LR aircraft are delivered.

Qatar appears to have been mulling over this decision for some time, with air rights to Australia’s capital cities of Melbourne and Brisbane granted early in 2007 under the Howard government.

It is understood that the carrier only received its rights to land in Sydney early this year, as previous protectionist agreements stipulated an Australian carrier must first operate the route before Qatar could compete.

At the briefing, Qatar also announced four other international services from Doha, including Goa and Amritsar in India, and two other unnamed locations in Europe.

Alongside these new routes, Qatar will also be increasing capacity to the eight cities of Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Lagos, Muscat, Mashad Iran, Tunis and Algiers from the end of the month.