November 10 – Qatar Airway CEO Akbar Al Baker (pictured) has hit back at the critics of the World Cup host nation, stressing that his nation will “always rub salt into the wound” of its adversaries.
In the endless back-and-forth between Qatar and its critics, Al Baker took the opportunity at the official unveiling of the expansion of Hamad Airport, the international gateway to Qatar, to attack Qatar’s adversaries and the media.
“We always rub salt into the wound of our competitor, and of course, our adversaries, as you can see the measure of the negative media campaign against my beloved country Qatar,” said Al Baker, who is known to be outspoken and controversial.
“Because people cannot accept that a small country like the state of Qatar has won the world’s largest sporting event.”
“Congratulations to Qatar, my beloved country,” added Al Baker.
In the run-up to the November 20 kick-off of the first World Cup in the Arab world with Qatar and Ecuador opening the tournament, scrutiny on the hosts has intensified. Qatar has long been the object of international scorn over its human rights record and labour laws as well as its treatment of the LGBT community.
But Al Baker, who has previously suggested that women can’t run airlines and that American carriers are ‘crap’, remarks for which he later apologized, has gone on the offensive, backing the remarks of other Qatari officials, including World Cup boss Nasser Al Khater, that there is an orchestrated media campaign against Qatar, based on racism and infamy.
With the airport expansion, Qatar hopes to become a regional flight hub and handle a greater influx of football fans as well as tourists in the future.
The expansion includes The Orchard, an indoor tropical garden with 300 trees and 25,000 plants.
“We don’t want it to be the biggest hub in the world,” said Al Baker. “But we in Qatar always look at quality. And this is what we will deliver.”
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