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Emirates’ Air Arabia will start regular flights to Sharjah from Vnukovo Airport on November 18. Airbuses А320 will fly twice a week, expanding to six flights per week later on.
Meanwhile, taking into consideration excessive number of aircrafts over UAE (see news from October 27), market players reacted with doubts to a new carrier. ‘There are already plenty of flights to this destination: many charters and enough regular ones. I do not think that this season calls for another airline’, says Irina Portnova, ICS Travel Group’s head of UEA destination. And Larisa Yermakova, Paks Company UAE department manager, adds: ‘Everyone already planned their volumes against the commitments’. However, for the time being Air Arabia plans to sell seats only by retail.
Experts think that the carrier has few chances of gaining a wide category of clients. First of all, everyone agrees that Sharjah airport loses in comparison with Dubai. Secondly, Air Arabia tickets cost on average $100 more that charter. But many admit that the airline will fill a certain niche. ‘If you divide an air traffic market by cost into three parts, then Emirates will occupy the top part, charters, the bottom one, and Air Arabia will join Pakistan Airlines in the middle’, speculates Aleksey Sergeechev, IntAer vice-president. – ‘Middle part will find its customer in due course’.
