Kuwait, 5 July 2023

Last year saw some of the highest fuel prices on record. Together with supply chain problems throttling new aircraft deliveries, many airlines struggled to recover from the pandemic.

Jazeera Airways has avoided those pitfalls and is planning for steady growth over the next few years – indeed, within the next few months.

“We have some significant expansion plans,” said Jazeera CEO, Rohit Ramachandran just before the airline announced it is planning a new low-cost carrier (LCC) with Saudi partners, to be based at Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport.

Jazeera is attempting to tap into Saudi Arabia’s ‘vision 2030’ strategy, which calls for a huge expansion of the kingdom’s aerospace sector. The aviation market there is booming, exemplified by the announcement of a new flag-carrier, Riyadh Air.

Jazeera is also benefitting from what the CEO described as the “very vibrant” Kuwaiti marketplace. “Kuwaitis are inveterate travellers and have been adventurous in moving towards vacation spots that Gulf Cooperation Council tourists don’t usually go to,” he explained.

This has led to the airline pushing into central Asian destinations such as Namangan and Bishkek that many people would find difficult to locate without the aid of a map.

Gulf residents are increasingly keen to visit these nations, while the populations of those states have an equal appetite to travel to the Gulf. Part of that is in the form of religious tourism, with pilgrims heading to Saudi Arabia via Kuwait.

“One of our most profitable routes is to Osh, a little city in Kyrgyzstan, which is the Moslem enclave in that country,” said Ramachandran. “By our reckoning, Jazeera is the largest foreign operator of Umrah flights.

“Out of the Gulf carriers, we probably have the biggest share of the market from central Asia.”

Jazeera emerged strongly from the pandemic. In 2022, it flew 3.6 million passengers, a striking increase on 2.4 million in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. Net profit for 2022 was more than KD20 million ($65 million), a record, despite perhaps the most expensive fuel prices in history.

And prospects seem good: “We have a clear business plan that takes us up to 86 destinations in the next three years. Currently, it’s 66,” said Ramachandran.

Areas for expansion include the Indian subcontinent, Iran, Saudi Arabia and eastern Europe. “Last year, we launched Prague and Vienna,” he said.

Serving that expanding network will require more aircraft. At present, Jazeera has 15 320neos and eight older Airbus A320ceos. At the 2021 Dubai International Airshow, it ordered 20 A320neos plus eight A321neos, with the jets now steadily replacing the legacy aircraft.

With many airlines complaining of late deliveries from manufacturers, it is notable that Jazeera was able to pull forward deliveries of two A320neos last year “far sooner” than anyone anticipated.

“For me, getting aircraft is not a huge challenge; if you have money, you can get aircraft. The challenge is making a profit and getting return on investment,” said Ramachandran.

“By the end of 2023 we’ll have 30 aircraft. Our order for the A321s will be for the standard version, not [long-range] A321LRs or XLRs, so we’re looking at deploying them on high-capacity routes where we have consistently high load factors.

“We have 13-14 daily flights into the Western Province of Saudi Arabia; we’ll deploy them there. In fact, we’re considering leasing some A321s this year to cater for some of the demand.

“Having said that, we may have to increase the aircraft order. We also have options that were not really shared at the time of the order.”

Jazeera has its own terminal, T5, at Kuwait International Airport. Original design capacity was three million passengers annually. Efficiency measures increased that to 3.6 million, but that has just kept pace with the company’s growth.

Two new airbridges (taking the total to five) and two new ground gates for remote stands, plus 14 new check-in desks, have recently been installed, increasing capacity to 4.6 million.

And an extension to the existing building is being built this year: “That should give us at least another 1.5 million capacity.”