United Arab Emirates (UAE) low-cost carrier flydubai has announced plans to inaugurate flights to Ethiopia with a three times weekly Dubai – Addis Ababa service. The new link will commence from April 22 and will place it in direct competition with sister carrier Emirates Airlines, which offers a daily service, and Ethiopian Airlines, which has a twice daily service; all of these rotations being flown with widebodied equipment. Around 205,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route in the past year with fares averaging $254 each way.
Flydubai now serves 34 destinations in the Middle East and Africa and competes directly with Emirates Airline on eleven of these – Amman, Bahrain, Beirut, Colombo, Damascus, Dhaka, Doha, Karachi, Khartoum, Kuwait City and Muscat. When the budget carrier was launched Emirates Airline’s Managing Director, Tim Clark, was quick to note that there were no direct links between the two airlines and that there was a place for both budget and full-service options in many of the markets it served. The past year and a half have proved just this and the table below that highlights the routes they both currently serve from Dubai International Airport.
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MARKET ANALYSIS: FLYDUBAI AND EMIRATES AIRLINE (weekly non-stop flights from Dubai) |
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|
Destination |
FLYDUBAI |
EMIRATES AIRLINE |
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|
Flights |
Seats |
% Capx |
Avg Fare |
Flights |
Seats |
% Capx |
Avg Fare |
|
|
Amman |
11 |
2,079 |
24.4 % |
$285 |
14 |
4,091 |
48.1 % |
$252 |
|
Bahrain |
19 |
3,591 |
17.7 % |
$126 |
21 |
5,398 |
26.7 % |
$173 |
|
Beirut |
21 |
3,969 |
41.3 % |
$292 |
14 |
3,718 |
38.8 % |
$321 |
|
Colombo |
5 |
945 |
13.1 % |
$236 |
14 |
5,336 |
74.2 % |
$275 |
|
Damascus |
11 |
2,079 |
31.1 % |
$285 |
14 |
3,833 |
57.5 % |
$247 |
|
Dhaka |
5 |
756 |
9.1 % |
- |
17 |
6,034 |
73.1 % |
$216 |
|
Doha |
35 |
6,615 |
26.6 % |
$113 |
35 |
9,809 |
39.5 % |
$286 |
|
Karachi |
7 |
1,323 |
10.3 % |
$153 |
28 |
8,529 |
66.5 % |
$119 |
|
Khartoum |
13 |
2,457 |
67.2 % |
$361 |
3 |
753 |
20.6 % |
$393 |
|
Kuwait City |
28 |
5,292 |
22.4 % |
$171 |
28 |
8,384 |
35.5 % |
$184 |
|
Muscat |
20 |
3,780 |
22.7 % |
$109 |
14 |
3,773 |
22.7 % |
$171 |
In general, with Khartoum being the only exception, Emirates still offers at least daily schedules to all the destinations that flydubai serves, with up to five flights a day to Doha, which matches the low-cost carrier’s own frequency on that particular route. Emirates offers a two or three-class service on all of these routes versus flydubai’s all-Economy class. This enables the full-service airline to offer efficient connectivity for passengers beginning or ending their journey at other destinations in its network. The focus on these passengers also explains why sometimes the average Emirates fare is cheaper than that of flydubai, as Emirates looks to fill up the remainder of their larger widebodied aircraft with cheaper promotional tickets.
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NOTE: Schedule data extracted from Flightbase for week commencing April 14, 2011; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending January 2011.
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