Budget airline flydubai will consider a partnership with an African airline, according to the low cost carrier’s chief executive officer.

Speaking at Aviation Show MEASA on Tuesday, flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith said the airline had been encouraged by the government to work with African partners.

Asked by an audience member if a partnership with an African airline would be considered, he said: “Of course we will, especially as here, the government always encourages us to work with African partners, and we will continue cooperating with other players in the region.”

In a keynote interview, Al Ghaith said flydubai’s aircraft range only allowed it to fly to a small section of the African continent, including East African destinations.

But he brushed away a suggestion that a lack of long distance capability was a way in which the airline’s fleet of Boeing 737 Max 8s, which it started taking delivery of in 2017, falls short, saying: “It does not fall short, it does exactly what it is supposed to do.”

flydubai had seen success in the Russian market, he said, as in the nine and-a-half years since it was launched, the airline had been able to add services to nine Russian regional cities that were not properly served or not served at all from Dubai prior to the airline’s launch. He added that the Russian market was ‘on the rebound’, particularly since visas on arrival were introduced for Russians travelling to the UAE in 2017.

Al Ghaith seemed to rule out the suggestion that flydubai could move into the long haul market: “I personally have not seen enough evidence that long-haul low cost will be as successful as we have with short haul,” he said.

‘The dark ages’

Delegates also heard from Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, who responded to a question from an audience member about the possibility of pre-clearance of United States of America customs, to help Dubai passengers travelling to the USA avoid long waits on arrival.

He said there was a need for international standards in biometric identification to speed up the process.

At present, Abu Dhabi is one of 15 airports worldwide which allow pre-clearance of USA customs, immigration and agriculture checks, but no such service currently exists in Dubai.

“I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago and met one of the border and customs control people, and I was absolutely blown away at the degree of innovation and customer orientation that CBP [Customs and Border Protection] in the US is now looking at, and in some gateways you experience now much, much improved border patrol operation.

“We are encouraging customs and border patrol, particularly in the US and other countries, to become part of network,” said Griffiths, adding: “The key to this is providing a single token that is accepted around the world, so that passenger identity and biometric data can be easily exchanged between different countries.

“That will transform the whole customs and border patrol experience which is, at the moment, still stuck in the dark ages. It could be solved if we could get some form of agreed international standards.”

He concluded: “The technology works, it’s just a question of adopting an international standard, and some good work is being done towards that.”

Looking east

Another focus was the need to make the most of the ‘incredibly important opportunity’ of soaring numbers of passengers from China and South East Asia, said Griffiths.

“By 2034 there are going to be 1.3 billion additional air passenger journeys from South East Asia. For us as a hub in the Middle East it’s an incredibly important opportunity,” he said.

‘China-friendly’ payment systems, Mandarin language options on Dubai Airports apps and flight information, as well as the availability of hot drinking water free in airport restaurants were initiatives designed to cater to this market, he said.

“The Chinese are big travellers now and will be even bigger travellers in the future, so it’s a major opportunity and we are trying to embrace it.”

Griffiths also sounded positive notes about the continued increase in traffic through Dubai International Airport, with a ‘record breaking’ month of 7.8 million passengers in August 2018, amounting to 280,000 per day.

The four-month long electronics ban for customers travelling to the USA had affected traffic in 2017 he said, but there had been highs and lows across the traffic base, with strength seen in the European market, particularly the UK, with London remaining the busiest destination for passengers travelling from Dubai.

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(Reporting by Imogen Lillywhite; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com)

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