Airline begins flight to India
KUWAIT CITY : Jazeera Airways, which will start its maiden flight to India tonight, expects to fly some 1.0 million passengers by early next year, as its destinations double to 16. To cater for this, CEO Marwan Boodai said they will boost its flight strength to five by January 2007, up from three now. "Jazeera is the fastest growing airline in the Middle East, having grown to ten destinations within eight months of operations," he said during a press briefing in its head quarters. "This is very, very ambitious."
Boodai said the airline's growth is underlined by capitalizing on the government's recent move for an open sky policy.
The sole privately-owned carrier in the Middle East will increase its destination to ten with its flight to Mumbai and New Delhi, and will receive the delivery of its fourth airplane by next week. It received its third aircraft late June. To date it has flown 250,000 passengers, and "you'll see how fast the number grows from here," said its Revenue and Sales Manager Michael Hayden. The airline has very high on-time arrival rate of 95 percent as of May, when it flew just two aircrafts.
Out of its eight existing destinations, it controls the highest market share in the Kuwait-Aleppo route. Jazeera flies 90 percent of the traffic for the route, and even foresee a further gain in the sector. The other Syrian destination is also doing well. The airline controls almost half of the traffic on the Kuwait-Damascus route.
Operations
"Before we start operations, the average is 9,000 seats a month, but now it has gone up to 16,000 per month. You could see an example of what the airline could do for a market like this," said Hayden. Jazeera also dominates the traffic for Kuwait-Alexandria (63 percent), Kuwait-Luxor (43 percent) and Kuwait-Beirut (53 percent). The airline is already the fifth biggest carrier to fly to Lebanon in the short time it has been operating.
Competition however is tougher for the bigger, more hectic markets of Bahrain and Dubai. As of May this year, Jazeera has a market share of 18 percent and 12 percent for the two cities respectively. Jazeera however is increasing the frequency of flights to Dubai to twice a day, since the destination is ideal for day-stop. The airline took its first flight in October 2005. Apart from venturing into the Indian subcontinent, the airline also plans to develop its Levant and North African reach, flying to Iran, and reinforcing existing GCC routes.
RTRS adds: Kuwait's no-frills Jazeera Airways hopes to capture at least 50 percent of the Gulf Arab region's market share in one year, the airline's chairman said on Saturday. "We will be offering connectivity to passengers, by picking them up from Bahrain and Dubai, bring them to Kuwait and then fly them to international flights in Asia," he said, adding that the airline will be offering this service starting September.
Gulf Arab countries have a large percentage of expatriate workers, especially from the Asian sub-continent. The United Arab Emirates population, for example, is comprised of 85 percent expatriates. Jazeera Airways will start flights to New Delhi and Mumbai on Saturday. Boodai also said he aimed to capture a 50 percent market share in the rest of the destinations the airline flies to within one year. Jazeera Airways flies to a total of 10 destinations. Currently, Jazeera Airways has captured 18 percent of market share in Bahrain and 12 percent in Dubai.
Jazeera, Kuwait's first private airline which launched operations in October, hopes to be operating five aircraft and to fly 1 million passengers to 16 destinations by March 2007.
By Maisara Ismail
© Arab Times 2006
