Qatar
I’m not aware of any recent definitive statement concerning the B 787’s and A 350’s ability to operate from BRS.
There has been a lot of discussion on local and national aviation message boards about the subject for a while now, possibly for two reasons: the first is that in 2010 the Thomson MD stated that BRS would be amongst the first airports to operate the TOM B 787 but in the event that has not happened; the second is that a few months after the MD’s statement a TOM B 767 experienced a hard landing at BRS leading to structural damage to the airframe with the subsequent AAIB report highlighting, inter alia, a disproportionate number of hard landings with B 767s on runway 09.
Some believe that Thomson is no longer prepared to use its 787s at BRS but the absence of the type at BRS might equally be the result of commercial considerations as much as operational ones, although it does seem certain that anything larger than a B 767 could not use the full length parallel taxiway because the wings would overhang a fence next to a public road. The airport proposes turning circles and back tracking to overcome this problem.
The first two issues of the BRS master plan published following the government's 2003 White Paper on civil aviation, and both are about a decade old, stated that Boeing had indicated the B 787 would be able to reach Cape Town or western America from the existing runway, later illustrated as a distance in excess of 9,000 kilometres. I realise that early assessments of capability don’t always translate into reality when new aircraft types are finally delivered, and I believe that early 787s were overweight, but with Doha less than 5,500 kilometres from Bristol Boeing must have made a considerably over optimistic prediction with the information they initially provided if even 5,500 kilometres are out of range.
Having no technical qualifications in this subject whatsoever I cannot venture any worthwhile opinion on this particular aspect.
Given that Qatar apparently wants to increase its BHX presence I’m a bit surprised that south west England is in the airline's sights at present. BHX is reasonably convenient for many West Country travellers when it comes to long haul and BHX is increasing its portfolio across a number of airlines.
The other point to bear in mind if Qatar, or any other airline, is looking at the Middle East (or other long haul) from the West Country/South Wales is the APD situation. If Wales gains this power and reduces it to nil, as the Wales Assembly Government has suggested is in its mind, then long haul could become an attractive proposition for airlines deciding on BRS or CWL. The Westminster government’s various proposals for mitigating the effects on English airports of APD devolution to Scotland and Wales would seem to offer little or nothing in BRS’s case, and some might not be legal under EU legislation anyway.
Put simply I believe that if it was a straightforward issue of BRS or CWL for such a route as Qatar then the former’s position serving a larger and wealthier primary catchment, as well as a larger secondary catchment in the further south west and M4 corridor, would carry the day.
However, if operational and/or government taxation policies intrude the issue is much less clear.