KUWAIT CITY, 12 December 2004 — Kuwait’s first private passenger airline received its Air Operation Certificate from the emirate’s civil aviation authorities yesterday and will start operations in February, its president said. “We are starting operations in February with two aircraft. We plan to expand our operations as soon as possible,” Marwan Boodai, president of Jazeera Airways, told reporters.
Jazeera, a low-fare airline, was established in May as a shareholding company with a capital of 10 million dinars ($34 million), 30 percent of which is owned by a group of core founders while the rest was offered to the public on May 26.
Vice President for Operations Captain Adel Al-Barges said the first flight was planned for mid-February with two leased Airbus planes, with 164 passenger capacity each.
In the first phase, Jazeera plans to operate up to 30 flights a week to Beirut, Amman, Dubai, Bahrain and Cairo, Barges said.
The company will purchase two new Airbus aircraft after six-to-eight months of operation and within the first five years, it plans to own a fleet of eight aircraft, he said. “It’s a low-cost, low-fare airways but with a high quality service ... It offers only economy class and its fares will be around half of the IATA fares,” Barges said.
Jazeera plans to cover most of the Gulf, Middle East and part of the Indian subcontinent’s destinations in the first five years, he said.
The airline was founded by Boodai Group, a leading Kuwaiti business group which has key investments in media, transport and aviation sectors.
The Kuwaiti government decided in November 2003 to open up the domestic aviation sector to competition by allowing the private sector to establish low-fare passenger and cargo airlines to compete with the state-owned loss-making Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC). A second private aviation company for cargo is being established. The decision came after the Gulf Arab emirates of Sharjah and Abu Dhabi last year began operating no frills carriers.
Kuwaiti lawmakers have however strongly criticized the decision, arguing it would adversely affect the value of the national flagship carrier.
KAC has incurred a loss almost every year in the past decade and its total accumulated deficits have reached hundreds of millions of dollars.
