Qatar Airways will begin flights to the capital of Australia in the coming year, the airline has announced.

The national carrier did not set a date for the launch of service to Canberra. However, it said in a statement that seven other new destinations are planned for 2017-18.

Two of these are Tabuk and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, the airline’s ninth and tenth routes to the country.

The remaining five destinations on the list – Dublin, Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago in Chile and Medan in Indonesia – have all already been previously teased by the airline.

Dublin route ‘soon’

No firm start dates for any of the routes have been disclosed.

In June, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said that the airline wished to launch its Dublin route “soon.”

However, when asked on Twitter about the new service, Dublin Airport said this week that it had “no further information” about its launch date.

we have no further information at this stage.

— Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) November 28, 2016

Al Baker has also said he hopes that the Doha to Las Vegas service would begin in January 2017.

Previously announced routes

Alongside seven new routes, Qatar Airways is also planning to take off to 12 other destinations for the first time next year. All of these have been announced previously.

They are:

• Auckland, New Zealand will start on Feb. 5, 2017 (after repeated delays);
• Sarajevo, Bosnia;
• Skopje, Macedonia;
• Libreville, Gabon;
• Nice, France (a resumption of a service which was discontinued in 2013);
• Chiang Mai, Thailand (which had originally been planned to launch this December); and
• Douala, Cameroon.

Are you excited about the new routes? Thoughts?