DOHA: Qatar Airways (QA) has announced that an agreement with FC Barcelona has been reached to renew the partnership with the club’s first team until June 30, 2017. The deal will allow the award-winning carrier and the world’s best football club to partner together for another season of world-class football.
Akbar Al Baker, Chief Executive, QA Group, said: “Three years ago, the joining of FCB and QA was history in the making, as this was the first time we entered into such a landmark sports partnership.
“We feel very proud of the milestones achieved by the team during the last few years and it is a great honour to have the opportunity to remain standing side by side with the club. The new agreement shows the world how strongly we stand behind FCB, and we look forward to a great upcoming season together.”
QA entered into a strategic three-year partnership in July 2013 which has seen the airline develop activations together with the club that have gone well beyond having the name of the carrier on the team jerseys.
The airline features the team in its safety video, shown to all passengers before departure, which also became a hit across all social media channels, generating nearly 40 million views in the first four weeks of its debut. Since the partnership, QA has launched campaigns, including ‘The Land of FCB’ and ‘The FCB Holiday’, building on the concept of ‘a team that unites the world’ — and sponsored the FCB summer tours.
In addition, the airline painted the FCB custom-designed Boeing 777, introduced unique tour and match packages for fans looking to visit Barcelona through the QA Holidays division and has organised a number of very successful social media contests to celebrate the sponsorship with the fans.
As one of the world’s fastest growing airlines with more than 150 destinations, QA has helped Barcelona widen its fan network around the world, while at the same time championing their shared values of excellence and pride in their community bases.
QAs and FCB have also worked closely to develop strategies to promote Barcelona in Asia, and this has produced an important increase in passengers from Asia Pacific to Barcelona.
At the same time, since the commencement of the sponsorship in 2013, QA has also doubled its frequencies to both Madrid and Barcelona, expanding both routes to full double daily services, bringing thousands of tourists every week to Spain from around the world.
The Peninsula
