Qatar Airways has been forced to postpone the launch of flights to Chengdu, China, following the grounding of its Dreamliner Boeing 787 aircraft in January.

The three-flights-a-week was meant to start from 19 March, but the route has been postponed until a later unspecified date.

The airline has also decided to reduce capacity of its soon-to-be launched route to Chicago. Scheduled to start from10 April, the Doha-Chicago route will only operate three-times-a-week, not rising to the originally planned daily service until 15 June.

Qatar Airways decided to ground its fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners in mid-January following recommendations by the US aviation authorities after an aircraft operated by Nippon Airways had to make an emergency landing due to a malfunctioning battery on 16 January.

Airlines across the globe have stopped operating their Dreamliner aircraft earlier this year.

Concerns surrounding the safety of Boeing’s Dreamliners had been growing, with a string of incidents afflicting the aircraft model in recent months, including fuel leaks, a cracked cockpit window and an electrical fire.