Following on from Part 1 (Riyadh Air, Etihad Airway and Gulf Air), another three aviation leaders from the Middle East share their thoughts at Routes World 2024 on where they find themselves, what keeps them up at night and what is driving change in the industry.

Air Arabia (G9) – Breaking the mould

“Airports need to decide if they want to open the door and welcome Airlines, or you want them to go away somewhere else…. People will fly if you open up your airports.” – Adel Abdullah Ali – CEO – Air Arabia.

• Multifaceted – Hailing from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, Air Arabia is not your typical airline model, having charted a unique path in the region, assembling a complex structure including multiple AOC’s, built upon a base of shared group functions. The Group, now in its 21^st year of operations, has been breaking ground across the region, collecting subsidiaries and joint ventures in Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Nepal, Armenia and most recently, Pakistan. To date, the airline group has flown more than 150 million customers and currently has 70 aircraft with another 120 on the way. The airline also has stakes in a diverse range of travel and tourism related businesses including travel agencies, hotels, catering, cargo, MRO and logistics businesses.
  
  
• Pushing boundaries – Perhaps flying under the radar of some, the Air Arabia brand spans the Arab world, a vast network stretching from Muscat to Morocco. Along their way, they’ve had to change mindsets, that low fares do not necessarily mean low quality. Air Arabia is proud to promote themselves as low cost but high standards, offering a comfortable service at a competitive price. This includes offering free inflight entertainment and affordable food onboard. CEO Adel Abdullah Ali notes the role the carrier has played in transforming the landscape, democratising travel, stimulating new markets and importantly enabling travel for demographics (including students and senior citizens) who were otherwise locked out of the travel market prior to 2003.
  
  Ali, a self-described pragmatist, is not afraid to take risks as the airline tests the waters in new markets. Recently spotting a gap in an under-serviced Pakistani expat market, the airline launched Fly Jinna. Choosing to avoid the clutter of Karachi, the airline has done well to establish a base focused on Islamabad and Lahore.
  
  
• Keep it simple – a straight talker, Ali urges airlines, airports and regulatory authorities to keep things simple, avoid over-complicating matters. With an average load factor of 80% (excluding the Covid bump) under his belt, Ali has his eyes on the future, with an order of 120 A320 family group of units in the pipeline. Where, when and how to deploy these units, only time will tell. Some hints include referencing the untapped potential in Egypt. The growth of secondary and tertiary airports in Saudi and India also scored a mention. The addition of the XLR (extra long range) variant will also stir things up with destinations currently beyond their range soon becoming in reach. However, according to Ali transatlantic services from Morocco are currently off the table.

flyadeal (F3) – Laser focused

“We’re unashamedly a bus… with wings… we just get people from A to B as cheap as possible and on time. I’m not going to add frills around it…” – Steven Greenway – CEO – flyadeal.

• Eyes on the ball – Steven Greenway, a CEO who shows a clear sense of understanding who flyadeal is and what it should be, makes no bones about it. The airline is focused on high demand routes catering to high volume, low yield traffic. With an emphasis on opening up secondary cities, flyadeal remains committed to developing its regional presence; and will continue to explore opportunities, including locations they do not service for e.g. Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, before overextending themselves internationally.
  
• Growing pains – Now in its 8^th year, and with 35 aircraft and more than 10 million passengers per year, the airline is maturing. They admit letting go of scrappy start-up behaviours and investing more into their people, systems and processes that will support operational resilience. The flyadeal team have deliberately paused new destinations to allow the airline breathing room to catch up. Being able to achieve consistency and reliability has become an important focus. Impressively, the airline was ranked number one globally in OTP in Sep 2024 by Cirium. They have achieved this partly as a result of allowing for a number of spare aircraft in its rotations.

“Working on the budgets for next year… and already we’re starting to see the benefits of all the work we’ve done.” – Steven Greenway – CEO flyadeal.

• Future outlook – flyadeal are also focused on their app and digital proposition in general. This is how they’ll look to further differentiate against LCC competitors Wizz Air (5W) and flynas (XY). With 99% of all customer transactions being digital (by the end of 2024), investing in technology is a core priority. The airline is also venturing into GDS distribution driven by the mantra Easy to buy, Easy to fly. They are also investing significantly into synchronising systems to enable interlining between Saudia onto flyadeal. The carrier likened their relationship with their owners Saudia to the Jetstar-Qantas relationship, referencing a degree of collaboration when it comes to scheduling and optimising their joint networks. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that Greenway mentioned some potential enhancement to their product offerings, saying, “We will look at a small premium cabin, there is no decision being made…. we’re not looking at a significant deviation from what they already do.” Greenway further elaborated that any product would be generic, given buying off-the-shelf would allow the airline to avoid lengthy delays faced by airlines who headed down the bespoke route.
  
• Far and wide – A notable change to their Airbus family of 320 narrow-body fleet may be on the cards with Greenway mentioning the airline expected to make a wide body announcement before the end of the year. Having recently started Baghdad services using a wet lease wide-body, the airline has also experimented, with success, selective and seasonal use of wide-bodies catering to seasonal surges from high volume Hajj and Umrah visits. This tactic has allowed them to move twice as many passengers per flight, while freeing up an A320 unit to service another destination. However, Greenway acknowledged that any upcoming orders this year will not materialise for some time, and receiving any of Saudia’s incoming 787 orders is not on the cards. Their wide-body order will unlock a greater range of international stops and support the carrier’s future network. Greenway was clear on their intention to adjust their traffic split between international vs domestic travellers. Currently at 20:80, they’re looking to grow their international traffic contribution, to 35:65. However Greenway emphasised that this growth would not come at the expense of domestic figures, with these numbers also expected to grow. For the moment, the airline remains focused on local and regional markets; and this includes a move into South Asia for the first time with scheduled services starting in 2025.

“Europe is a bit aviation unfriendly, given all the taxes and complexity of getting into the region. But it’s not on the top of their list – we need to sort out our backyard before we stretch ourselves a bit further.” – Steven Greenway – CEO flyadeal.

Oman Air (WY) – Adopt and adapt

“We’re a little bit late to the party… certainly many have trod this path before us… and it’s a path we now need to go on. We need to justify our existence. We need to justify to be able to invest more.” – Con Korfiatis – CEO – Oman Air.

• Transformation – Con Korfiatis, CEO of Oman Air, with a finance background and experience with start-ups and turn-around projects, is currently tasked with leading a significant transformation program that affects every dimension of the airline. With time ticking on achieving a turnaround quickly, Korfiatis has already set about pruning the airline. Focused on reducing the airline’s cost base, a number of measures have already been introduced to stem revenue losses, including cutting unprofitable routes (network capacity recently down by 30%), converting onboard product to better suit passenger profiles, removing complexity from the fleet and making teams more efficient. It is expected that by early next year the carrier will be an all 787-9 operator for wide-body and by mid-2026 they’ll be a 737-max operator. Removing the cost of complexity is clearly a priority.

• Smells like team spirit – Korfiatis spoke repeatedly on the importance of working closely with key stakeholders. As part of the airline’s restructure, they’ve reprioritised their relationship with Oman Tourism. Jointly investing in a new stopover program which allows for up to three-night stopovers, the airline and tourism authority are sampling from Iceland’s playbook, who similarly bet big on promoting natural wonders and cultural authenticity as a way of filling cabins, while also improving in destination spending. Korfiatis does acknowledge, the need to invest heavily in marketing and promotion to grow the overall profile of the destination internationally and accepts that this will also likely attract new carriers into the market. On relationships with airports, the CEO gave credit to the sensational experience awaiting transit and arrival passengers travelling via the new terminal in Muscat which opened in 2018. Korfiatis mentioned the airport has achieved that sweet spot that increasingly eludes the mega-hubs where the traveller experience has be degraded as a result of congestion during their flight bank cross-over periods.

• If you can’t beat them – Oman Air is set to join One World in 2025 as a way of enabling growth. The airline already has strong relationships with Malaysia Airlines (MH) and Qatar Airways (QR) with these relationships likely to further deepen once fully embedded within the alliance group. Oman Air’s relationship with SalamAir (OV), the locally based Omani LCC was also discussed, with Korfiatis acknowledging a lot of effort has gone into improving the relationship. Korfiatis shared that there is a degree of commercial cooperation including code shares and a small degree of route planning, concluding that there is room in the market for both, given they’re catering to different demographics. Also, given the competitiveness of the local region, there is an acceptance that both have more to gain by working together where it makes sense.

“We’re fighting some of the giants around us for attention, trying to get our share of voice, so we’ll only succeed as playing as a team, it’s a very motivated team, there’s nothing like being a little bit of an underdog to give a bit more spark and fire in the belly to go and get things done, and it’s a very collegiate approach that we’ve  worked up together with our tourism colleagues.” – Con Korfiatis – CEO – Oman Air.

Oman Air announced during Routes World that they will commence services to Rome Italy, their first new destination announced by the airline in five years. The service will commence in December 2024, operate four times per week and will supplement the carrier’s existing service to Milan (MXP).

Save the date – Routes World 2025

Circle the calendar! From 24-26 September 2025, Routes World 2025 will be heading eastwards, and will be hosted by Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) at AsiaWorld-Expo with support from Hong Kong Tourism Board. We look forward to bringing you more coverage updates and insights.

In case you missed, here is our Top Takeaways from Routes World 2024.