Jazeera Airways, Kuwait’s low-cost, no-frills carrier might be small by global standards, but the budget airline is poised for rapid growth.

This year, Jazeera made its maiden flight to London’s Gatwick, becoming the first low-cost carrier from the Middle East to fly from the UK. After a solid 2019, it is preparing to serve more destinations in Asia and the Middle East next year.

“Our passenger numbers will exceed 3 million next year, which is almost a 300 percent increase since 2017,” said Rohit Ramachandran, who took over as Jazeera’s CEO that year. “We have plans for further routes, which will be announced as we line them up during the year. This will include some summer seasonal options,” he told Zawya.

Over a 12-year stretch at Air Arabia, Ramachandran gained experience with full-service conventional airlines as well as hybrid and low-cost carriers. Last week, he was featured in LinkedIn’s Top Voices List for 2019, which spotlights people whose posts, articles, videos and comments are driving conversations across their industries and countries.

Under his leadership, Jazeera seems to be hitting good numbers: it has seen a 14.3 percent growth in passengers, and its net profit for Q3 2019 has been reported at KD9.9 million, up 40.6 percent from KD7.0 million in the same period last year.

“By the end of this year, Jazeera Airways will have a fleet of 13 aircraft, comprising nine A320s and four A320neos. We will take delivery of four new A320neos in 2020,” Ramachandran said.

While all its 13 aircraft are leased through various lessors, its current aircraft utilization is at 14.5 hours. “We have no plans to move beyond this level of efficiency,” said Ramachandran.

Jazeera is all set to take delivery of a new A320neo aircraft soon to support its expanding network. After launching flights to London in October and Osh in Kyrgyzstan in the first week of November, the airline is prepared to start flying to Kathmandu in Nepal, Karachi in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Al Ain in UAE as well as Dammam and Abha in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi is a strategic destination not only for our customers in Kuwait but also for our customers across our network, as we are connecting cities with large passenger numbers [that include] the labour and religious segments,” Ramachandran said.

India is also an important market for the airline, considering the huge number of Indian expats in the Gulf state. “We fly today to five destinations in India. There is further opportunity to fly to more destinations in India, and we are waiting for the successful conclusion to the bilateral discussions to increase capacity between Kuwait and India.”

While its expansion is giving customers access to new destinations, Jazeera continues to invest in new cost-saving initiatives in ways that will benefit customers.

“The low-cost carrier model is all about allowing passengers the freedom to choose what they want to buy from an airline. We offer a range of ancillary products and services that enhance the customer experience at affordable prices. That way, we can manage our cost base more carefully,” Ramachandran said, adding, “We do provide some added-value services for free, such as in-flight entertainment, but this cost is offset by ad revenues.”

Hedging against fuel price volatility and negotiating maintenance expenses take the lead when it comes to investments in cost-saving initiatives.

“We’ve already started with hedging against fuel price fluctuations to reduce costs and sustain stability. We’ve hedged up to 25 percent of our annual fuel consumption,” he said.

“We are also moving forward with performing line and light maintenance in-house in a phased manner. We’re renegotiating major maintenance costs related to components and engines, and part of this is the announcement of our agreement with Airbus to provide our airline with components support for up to 29 A320ceos and A320neos aircraft as part of the Airbus Flight Hour Services,” Ramachandran explained. 

The new support service is expected to ensure efficient and effective availability of spare parts to its growing fleet. Jazeerah is also evaluating the construction of a hangar in Kuwait to support maintenance activities, the CEO said. 

(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)

(seban.scaria@refinitiv.com)

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