The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that more jobs could be generated and additional economic growth could be achieved in Namibia if intra-African markets are opened up to allow for greater airline transport connectivity.
The budget carrier has seen a strong start to the year with its Tanzania business reporting a 52 per cent rise in passenger numbers in May 2015 compared to the same month last year. Over a rolling 12 month period to the end of May 2015, the airline carried 716,350 passengers, up 76 per cent on the previous 12 months.
The recent formation and launch of Air Arabia Jordan is unlikely to be the last incarnation of the Air Arabia brand and group chief executive officer, Adel Ali, suggested that there are many market opportunities for the airline group to expand beyond its existing operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Morocco and the Kingdom of Jordan.
Saudi Arabian carrier flynas is prepared for growing competition in its home market from new entrants Al Maha Airways and Saudi Gulf Airlines and it is confident that a recent restructuring of the business under its former management team will put it in a strong position to continue its development.
Dubai International (DXB) has established itself as one of the world’s preferred passenger and cargo hubs linking east and west offering connections for passengers to virtually every corner of the world, while Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC), Dubai’s airport of the future, complements this offering with its compact, efficient passenger terminal and bustling cargo business.
Canadian manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace handed over a CSeries to North African carrier Nile Air during this week’s Routes Middle East & Africa forum in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. The CS100 model was presented to Mohamed El Sheriff, revenue and planning manager at the Egyptian carrier on the final morning of the event following its traditional event business card draw on the manufacturer’s stand.
The annual Routes Marketing Awards are highly regarded as the most prestigious awards in the industry as they are voted for and judged by the airline network planning community. They provide the airline community with the chance to have their say, regarding the airport or tourism authority they think has provided the best overall services to them relating to route development and marketing over the past year, to establish new or maintain and develop existing routes.
Digital marketing has evolved immensely over time, and with over 40 per cent of the world now connected to the internet, it has never been more important. Joshua Alexander, Digital Business Development Manager for Routesonline gave us a snapshot of the aviation marketing landscape and how it has evolved since it began in 1986 to delegates at Routes Middle East & Africa in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.
As has become the tradition at our events, the manufacturer has a number of aircraft models to present to event delegates on the final morning of the event. Make sure you visit the Bombardier Aerospace stand and place your business card into the bowl to be in with a chance of winning a CS100, CRJ1000NextGen or Dash 8-Q400NextGen model.
Not happy with just a new third daily rotation by Emirates Airline to Dubai, the air service development team at Birmingham Airport are attending the inaugural Routes Middle East & Africa forum in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain to secure additional connectivity into the regions.
Faisalabad is a city of more than two million people located in the province of Punjab. A major centre of industry and manufacturing, the city is estimated to contribute approximately one fifth of Pakistan’s total GDP.
This year’s inaugural Routes Middle East & Africa brought together two regions of the world that are at very different stages of their evolution and the event’s
Updated schedules for the remainder of the year show the Gulf carrier will switch the aircraft type deployed on the routes to Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport and Warsaw’s Chopin Airport from its smallest aircraft, the Airbus A330-200, to a larger Boeing 777-300ER. The change will take effect from December 1, 2015.
In an official welcome address to delegates at the Routes Middle East & Africa Strategy Summit and the Gulf Conference Centre in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain, Mohamed Yousif Al Binfalah, chief executive officer, Bahrain Airport Company, the host of this year’s inaugural forum, highlighted how the airport intends to continue its growth to support an increase in visitor arrivals into the Kingdom.
Airspace in the Middle East must have the flexibility to deal with the region’s rapid aviation growth, a subject that was highlighted in the Strategy Summit on the opening day of the inaugural Routes Middle East & Africa forum in Bahrain.
Bahrain International Airport, host of this year's inaugural Routes Middle East and Africa, is growing to cater to anticipated demand and allowed delegates to see first-hand how it intends to modernise the facility to support growth in arrivals to the Kingdom.
While the first chartered flight may have landed in Bahrain in 1927, the first scheduled commercial flight only arrived in the Kingdom in 1932, en-route from London to Delhi, carrying 24 passengers and establishing Bahrain as the Gulf’s first international airport.
In a major expansion of its network Nile Air is adding three new routes during the first week of June, including a new country market, neighbouring Sudan. The new link between Cairo and Port Sudan will launch on June 6, 2015 and will be operated on a twice weekly basis, Nile Air’s first international service in Africa. It will bring competition and enhanced connectivity to a route currently served on a weekly basis by Sudan Airways.
The study, commissioned by the Gulf hub carrier, projects that by 2020 the airline’s operating expenditure and capital investments will almost double to support 46,200 American jobs and deliver US$6.2 billion a year. These are among the key conclusions of the Oxford Economics Report to quantify the economic contribution which the airline makes to the US.
Al Qahtani Group (linked to Gulf Air) and Qatar Airways were both selected in late 2012 to bring new competition into the Saudi Arabian domestic market as part of a series of reforms. Both have been working with the local regulator to establish their respective businesses, Saudi Gulf Airlines and Al Maha Airways, but despite an initial suggestion these carriers would take-off by the end of 2013, we are still awaiting their arrival into the local skies.
The carrier was officially founded on May 31, 1945 and launched its first services from Beirut to the neighbouring cities of Syria, Cyprus, Egypt then Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other destinations in the Gulf from January 1, 1946.
The new flight, operated by a three-class Boeing 777-300ER, will add 5,040 international seats per week to and from the city, enabling customers in Bologna and the surrounding region to conveniently access key Emirates destinations in the Far East, Middle East, Africa and West Asia.
