Qatar Airways Expands U.S. and South America Connectivity with Aer Lingus and LEVEL

Where you can’t reach with your own aircraft you can reach with a codeshare agreement. That is the general rule of thumb in the aviation industry, and exactly what Qatar Airways has done in signing its latest agreement with AIG group airlines LEVEL and Aer Lingus.

A Major Codeshare Expansion

The new agreement is quite the large one. Qatar Airways has reached an agreement to codeshare a massive 18 transatlantic flights with AIG group airlines Aer Lingus and LEVEL from their bases in Dublin and Barcelona.

The agreement serves two purposes:

• Offer a Qatar Airways branded option for travelers situated in the involved cities. Something particularly useful for maintaining the Qatar Airways Privilege Club active even for passengers who might not always travel on Qatar Airways flights (aff.).
• Create one-stop flight solutions via Dublin and Barcelona to a vaster number of destinations in North and South America where Qatar Airways still doesn’t operate its own flights.

What a codeshare agreement involves is applying your own flight number on a flight operated by another airline. In this case Qatar Airways passengers will be able to book flights to the involved destinations via the airline’s website despite not flying on one of their aircraft.

18 routes are involved in this newly announced codeshare agreement:

• 7 operated by LEVEL
• 11 operated by Aer Lingus

New Routes via Aer Lingus (Dublin Hub)

The meatier chunk of routes in this new codeshare agreement is operated by Aer Lingus out of its rapidly evolving hub in Dublin International Airport. The Irish airport has opened a second wide-body capable runway which has boosted its capacity significantly.

One of the primary beneficiaries of this has been the flag carrier Aer Lingus which has been branching out to more destinations in the US. Now leveraging the capabilities of the Airbus A321XLR it can also operate such flights on a narrow body aircraft where demand isn’t there yet for a wide body plane.

The 11 destinations Aer Lingus will be codesharing with Qatar Airways are:

• Boston (BOS)
• Bradley International in Connecticut (BDL)
• Cleveland (CLE)
• Indianapolis (IND)
• Minneapolis (MSP)
• Nashville (BNA)
• Newark (EWR)
• Orlando (MCO)
• Philadelphia (PHL)
• Las Vegas (LAS)

New Routes via LEVEL (Barcelona Hub)

LEVEL on the other hand is the newcomer in the AIG group. The airline started off as a division of Spanish flag carrier Iberia. Since 2023 it has gained its own air operator certificate making it a standalone airline. It is, in a nutshell, a long-haul focused low-cost airline. It primarily focuses on offering transatlantic flights from Barcelona.

There are a tangible differences when flying with LEVEL over Qatar Airways aircraft operated flights. I’d recommend choosing this as an option over a Qatar Airways operated flight only in lack of other options or if the convenience factor of the flight is so high it cannot be ignored.

LEVEL will be codesharing 7 destinations with Qatar Airways which include:

• Boston (BOS)
• Los Angeles (LAX)
• Miami (MIA)
• New York (JFK)
• San Francisco (SFO)
• Buenos Aires (EZE)
• Santiago (SCL)

Benefits for Privilege Club Members

Benefits are simple, there’s not a lot of moving parts in this deal. The primary advantage of the new deal is that Qatar Airways Privilege Club members will have access to Avios mile accrual on these flights. Miles that can then be spent on rewards.

What This Means for Passengers

It means more options and flexibility for passengers traveling on Qatar Airways. There will be more one stop options to access destinations in North and South America via a transit in Europe.