Qatar Airways today becomes the first airline to fly the Airbus A350 to the United States.

The ferry flight left Hamad International Airport this morning at 07:40 local time and will land in at JFK International at approximately 14:00 local time.

Qatar Airways was the global launch carrier of the A350 and is the first to fly the aircraft to three continents; the airline’s fleet of seven A350s currently flies twice a day to Frankfurt, daily to Munich and three times a day to Singapore from Doha.

An eighth A350 will join the fleet before the end of the year and is scheduled to fly daily to Philadelphia from January 1st, 2016.

As further A350s join the fleet throughout 2016, passengers will have the opportunity to experience this new-generation aircraft on flights to Boston launching on March 16th, and the new second daily flight to New York from April 1st and Adelaide, Australia from May 2nd.

“We are proud to be the first commercial airline to land the Airbus A350 in the United States,” said Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar Al Baker.

“As the global launch customer of this new-generation aircraft, we are excited to introduce it to the American market, where we will commence commercial flights from January, 2016 on our route from Philadelphia.”

As part of its on-going expansion plans, Qatar Airways will also launch further destinations to North America in 2016.

Currently flying to eight key locations – Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Houston, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC – the airline will commence flights to Los Angeles in January, Boston in March and Atlanta in June.