Air Arabia
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Air Arabia is a low-cost airline based in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. It operates scheduled services throughout the Middle East and to the Indian subcontinent. Its main base is Sharjah International Airport.
Air Arabia is a member of the Arab Air Carriers Organization.
Code Data
History
The airline was established on 3 February 2003 and started operations on 29 October 2003. Air Arabia can be safely said to be the first budget airline in the Middle East region. It was formed by Amiri decree issued by Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qassimi. It is owned by Sharjah Civil Aviation Department (50%), Sharjah Airport International Free Trade Zone Authority (SAIF Zone) (10%), and other founders include Sharjah based and Bahrain based strategic investors (40%).
Services
Air Arabia operates the following services (as of May 2006):
Sharjah to Aleppo, Alexandria, Almaty, Amman, Aqaba, Astana, Asyut, Bahrain, Beirut, Colombo, Damascus, Dammam, Doha, Jaipur, Jeddah, Kabul, Kochi, Khartoum, Kuwait, Mumbai, Muscat, Nagpur, Riyadh, Sanaá, and Sharm El Sheikh. Future destinations in 2006 include Pakistan, more destinations in Southern India, and Cairo.
As in Feb. 1st, 2006 new flights from Tehran to Sharjah and return flights are reported to have started. As of May 5, 2006, it has started 2 flights to Kabul Afghanistan per week, which will be increased to daily flights in the summer (Afghan).It now operates 4 flights a week, on Tue/Thu/Fri/Sunday. It inaugurate other nonstop service on May 2006 as follows :
- Sharjah-Kochi : 4 flights a week until May 19th 2006, at which point the service will become daily.
- Sharjah-Jaipur : daily flight.
- Sharjah-Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen International: 2 flights a week departing Sharjah on Thu/Sunday evenings and Istanbul on Mon/Friday mornings.
Air Arabia has a very successful tie up with India based Kingfisher airlines to allow passengers from the gulf region go to places in India where Air Arabia does not go to. This tie up has been abruptly terminated for unknown reasons.
Fleet
The aircraft consists of the following aircraft (at June 2005):
Promotional cartoon characters
Since 2003 some Air Arabia advertisements and their webpage have featured cartoon characters which some believe bear a striking simularity to the characters in the American cartoon South Park.
External links
- [Air Arabia]
- [Air Arabia (Al Arabia)] - Company Profile
- [Air Arabia Fleet Detail]
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