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Air Arabia is moving forward with its network and capacity expansion plans, highlighting its resilience amid geopolitical challenges in the Middle East, as the carrier reported record financial and operational results for the third quarter of 2024.
Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammad Al Thani said the group had continued to face challenges in the third quarter, including airspace restrictions, inflationary pressures and fuel price volatility. However, he added: “Despite these factors, Air Arabia successfully expanded its network, increased operating capacity and maintained a strong operating margin. This achievement highlights the resilience of our business model.”
The airline group posted a net profit of AED564 million ($154 million) for the three months to the end of September 2024, up by 8% from the same period last year. Revenues rose 10% to AED1.78 billion, driven by strong passenger demand.
Air Arabia Group carried 5.1 million passengers from July to September, an 8% increase from the same period last year, with an average seat load factor rising by 2 percentage points to 81%.
During the first nine months of 2024, the LCC launched 22 new routes across its operating hubs in the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan. It also added six new aircraft to its fleet, bringing it to a total of 77 owned and leased Airbus A320 and A321s, with a further 120 narrowbodies on order from Airbus.
Speaking at Routes World 2024 in Bahrain in October, Air Arabia Group CEO Adel Abdullah Ali said the 120 aircraft have not begun to arrive yet, because of supply chain and reliability issues. “We've been leasing quite a lot of airplanes from the market to grow the business,” he added, without giving any further details about the leases.
However, he noted that the slipped timeline for the neo order was partly at Air Arabia’s request.
“We decided to delay [the neo deliveries] until late 2024. The reason for that is we're waiting for the next generation of the [CFM Leap] engines that will probably kick off this year, or early next year. There has been some delay, which will probably mean our first delivery will be in the second half of 2025.”
Air Arabia expects to take delivery of its first A321XLRs in 2027. “We’re already flying 7 hr. into Europe and East Asia, and with the XLR, we’ll be able to reach destinations 8 hr. or even 8.5 hr. away,” Ali said. “This allows us to expand into new markets like Thailand and Kuala Lumpur from our existing bases.”
New routes set to launch in the coming weeks include Air Arabia Abu Dhabi’s flights to Yekaterinburg, Russia, from Dec. 27 and Air Arabia Egypt connecting Cairo and Kuwait from Jan. 14, 2025.
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