Fourteen years after first taking to the skies, there appears to be no slowdown in demand for Air Arabia’s low-cost model across the Middle East and North Africa.
Now in its sixth year of operations, Air Arabia Maroc has increased the breadth of its operations from Morocco having grown to a fleet of four Airbus A320s. In the past five months the carrier has launched six new destinations between Morocco and Europe.
The recent formation and launch of Air Arabia Jordan is unlikely to be the last incarnation of the Air Arabia brand and group chief executive officer, Adel Ali, suggested that there are many market opportunities for the airline group to expand beyond its existing operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Morocco and the Kingdom of Jordan.
Faisalabad is a city of more than two million people located in the province of Punjab. A major centre of industry and manufacturing, the city is estimated to contribute approximately one fifth of Pakistan’s total GDP.
This year’s inaugural Routes Middle East & Africa brought together two regions of the world that are at very different stages of their evolution and the event’s
Airspace in the Middle East must have the flexibility to deal with the region’s rapid aviation growth, a subject that was highlighted in the Strategy Summit on the opening day of the inaugural Routes Middle East & Africa forum in Bahrain.
The new venture will complement the existing operations into Jordan with the introduction of regular scheduled flights to Kuwait from May 18, 2015 with services to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia following from May 19, 2015; Erbil, Iraq from May 20, 2015 and Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt from May 21, 2015 and more destinations are due to be added later in 2015.
This latest addition to the airline’s route network will bring the total number of destinations in Pakistan served by Air Arabia to six, as the airline also directly serves Karachi, Peshawar, Sialkot, Lahor and Islamabad from Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah International Airports.
Air Arabia signed a strategic partnership with the Ras Al Khaimah Department of Civil Aviation to become the Emirate’s designated carrier for passenger services from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport in spring 2014 following the collapse of RAK Airways.
The confirmation of the landmark link ends over a year of speculation about the service after Gu Zhongqin, president of Xinjiang Airport Group, revealed in December 2013 that the airport authority was in discussions with the budget carrier to introduce the link, around a 4 hour and a half to five hour sector.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) low-cost carrier Air Arabia is to set up an operation in Jordan after agreeing terms to acquire a 49 per cent stake in local carrier Petra Airline. The agreement will see the carrier relaunched as Air Arabia Jordan before the end of the first quarter of this year and will see Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport established as a fifth hub for the expanding low-cost business.
The airline will launch flights on eight routes across six countries from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport from May 16, 2014 despite its own Sharjah International Airport hub being just 80km away.
