JEDDAH, 16 August 2006 — A new African airline has started operating to Saudi Arabia bringing hundreds of Umrah pilgrims from the continent.
“We began operating to Jeddah with just one flight a week over a month ago and introduced second service from August. We’re launching our weekly third flight in September,” Al Tahar A. Bargan, chairman of Tripoli-based Nayzak Air Transport Co., told Arab News yesterday.
With its weekly three flights, the new Libyan private carrier hopes to transport 45,000 Umrah pilgrims from Algeria, Tunisia and other countries in West Africa, aside from Libya this season. It has been operating two Boeing 747-200s and a DC10 on its Jeddah route.
The airline also has plans to operate 25 Haj flights bringing over 20,000 Haj pilgrims from West African countries for the upcoming annual pilgrimage. Nayzak, a private airline, is one of the more than seven Libyan carriers — three of them government-owned and four others private, Abdulmajeed Ben Ramadan, the airline’s general manager, said.
Libya, with a population of six million, 1,750 sq km area and 1,500 km coastline, has been attracting 30,000 tourists from the world over, a majority of them coming from Europe.
The country is also opening up its tourism sector to foreign players. Some of its several government-owned hotels are now being offered to private operators as well as new properties in tourist areas.
“Tourism is a growing business in Libya. The government is now offering many incentives in this sector,” he said.
An overseas company is already in talks to secure contracts for two five-star hotels owned by the Libyan government in Tripoli. Discussions are also taking place to manage a big resort in Subrata opening in September.
Rise in traffic to the country has increased the demand for good hotels and hospitality services in the country.
Projects including hotels and seaside tourist villages and resorts outside Tripoli offer exceptional business opportunity for investors.
For decades, Libya has remained a closed country both for foreign travelers and investors for long, partly due to international sanctions.
But now the government is keen to welcome tourists and has relaxed granting of visas. It is focused on attracting quality group tourists rather than mass tourism.
With a vast coastline and being home to many archaeological sites, Libya is seen as holding immense tourism potential.
Libya’s underdeveloped tourism market especially is promising.
Several foreign firms, including hotel companies, are trying to enter the Libyan market through local partnerships.
Sharjah-based Tameer Holding said it had signed a deal with the Libyan government to develop a $20 billion residential and tourism project near Tripoli.
Its partners in the project include Dubai-owned developer Tatweer and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. The project will be built on an area of 40 square kilometers on the Mediterranean.
The country is rich in oil and produces urea, steel, cement, power, olives, dates, barley and orange.
While its exports to the Kingdom are negligible, it imports a substantial amount of its needs including carpets and food items — milk, butter, biscuits etc. from the Kingdom, said Ramadan who has been in the aviation industry for 28 years.
Al-Rawia Aviation Support Services, with Adham M. Alamoudi as general manager and Ashraf Alaydeross as business development manager, is the local general sales agent of Nayzak. UNASCO is its airport handling agent. Nayzak also has plans to operate a cargo flight to Jeddah every week.
