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It’s been a record-breaking summer for flydubai, with the airline carrying more than 4 million passengers between June and mid-September, according to latest figures.
The surge in travel saw the airline experience a 30% year-on-year increase over the same period last year, operating more than 32,000 flights across 120 destinations.
“We have recorded a 70% increase in passenger numbers to Trabzon and more than 40% to Bodrum this summer. We believe these figures could have potentially been even higher if the aircraft we ordered had been delivered on schedule. This would have enabled us to add more capacity on some of these popular routes,” said flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith, alluding to delays in scheduled aircraft deliveries this year.
The carrier, which operates a fleet of 78 Boeing 737s, has signed an agreement to lease four Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft between 17 October 2023 and 16 April 2024.
Corfu in Greece and Olbia in Sardinia were the latest additions to flydubai’s seasonal summer routes, with the airline also announcing the launch of operations to three new destinations: a daily service to Cairo from October 28; a service to Poznan, Poland commencing on October 29; a service to Mombasa from January 17, 2024.
In March, flydubai reported profits of 1.2 billion UAE dirhams ($327 million) for the year ending on December 31, 2022, representing a 43% increase from 2021.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)
