Gulf carrier Qatar Airways has confirmed it will launch flights to Chiang Mai in Thailand from the middle of December 2016 as a tag on its services between its Hamad International Airport hub in Doha and Yangon International Airport in the former capital of Myanmar.

The airline will offer a five times weekly service from December 16, 2016 using a 260-seat Airbus A330-200. It currently has 15 of the type in its 185 strong aircraft fleet configured with 24 Business Class and 236 Economy seats.

The largest and most culturally significant city in northern Thailand, Chiang Mai will be the fourth city in the Asian country to be served by Qatar Airways, which currently flies to Bangkok and Phuket, and will commence flights to Krabi from December 6, 2016. With the addition of Krabi and Chiang Mai to its network the carrier will increase its flights to Thailand from 39 to 48 per week by the end of 2016.

“As we are constantly expanding our network in South East Asia, the popular tourist destination of Thailand is an obvious target for growth,” explained Marwan Koleilat, senior vice president East Asia & South West Pacific.

“We have seen increased travel demand for our services to Thailand and now with the introduction of our product to popular secondary cities such as Chiang Mai and Krabi, we provide overseas visitors and tour operators with greater flexibility and ease of travel when designing their Thailand holiday itineraries,” he added.

The launch of flights to Chiang Mai comes at a time when Qatar Airways is rapidly expanding its network and will inaugurate 14 new destinations on its route map throughout 2016 and into early 2017, including a number of new markets in Africa.

New destination launches include: Marrakech (July 1, 2016), Pisa (August 2, 2016), Windhoek (September 28, 2016), Helsinki (October 10, 2016) Sarajevo (November 2, 2016), Seychelles (December 12, 2016), Auckland (February 6, 2017), Skopje (2017), Libreville (2017), Douala (2017), Lusaka (summer 2017) and Nice (summer 2017).