New routes sees flydubai take off

With plans to increase routes to 40 cities by end of this year, flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith has set his sights on possibly adding more flights to the Asian sub-continent. The carrier is also on track to launch its holiday packages concept soon.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, the head of Dubai’s low cost airline’s, however, refused to confirm if India was the destination of choice, saying: “We are certainly looking at going from 36 destinations to 40 by the end of 2011 but it is too early to confirm the new cities we are flying into.

“Looking at the demand and numbers, the sub-continent, the GCC, Eastern Europe and the Far East routes are all very attractive to us. Expansion into these regions is a natural progression.”

When asked specifically about launching more services to India considering in 2009 the airline was forced to postpone its three routes, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Lucknow, and reimburse passengers due to operational issues, Ghaith said: “This has nothing to do with me. The conversation over landing rights is between the two governments. The dialogue is always going and we are always ready to fly on routes that there is a market for.”

Ghaith also confirmed that the airline is expecting a capacity increase of 140 per cent over last year.

“We are increasing capacity day by day andwill continue to do so until we hit maturity,” he said.

The extra capacity is expected to be facilitated by the airline’s latest distribution deal with solutions partner, Travelport, which is designed to enable 63,000 travel agents to sell flydubai tickets through Travelport’s online networks.

Currently, the airline has 16 aircraft operational, which will go up to 20 by year-end. Another 37 of the short-haul jets will be delivered over the next five years.

Similar to other airlines in the recent past, Ghaith said that flydubai has also not been immune to the rising fuel prices the aviation industry has been hit in over the recent months.

“Forty per cent of an airline’s cost is determined by the price of fuel. Naturally, as costs rise, prices also increase and that will reflect in the fares,” he said.

But the CEO ruled out even the possibility of subsidies should the oil prices, which have currently stabilised, peak again later this year.

Yet, the rising costs are not expected to affect the airline’s plans to break-even and turnover a profit by next year.

Without confirming the period, Ghaith said:“We are certainly on track to make a profit next year. Over the next few years, we want to increase to our planned 70 destinations and serve all the lucrative routes in the 4.5-hour flight radius. Other plans is to launch a holidays division. All will happen in time.”

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