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A.K.Nizar, Head of Sales for Air Arabia was brimming with confidence during the ATM especially with the progress that this low cost airline has made since the last one year. Our Editor Subhash Motwani spoke to Mr Nizar and here is what he had to say…
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Tell us something more about Air Arabia and its flights to and from India
Air Arabia is the first international low-cost airline into India and is presently flying the Mumbai-Sharjah sector. In fact, Air Arabia is the first and only low fares airline of the Middle East. We started in 2003 and I am glad to say that this year we will be touching the one million customer mark which is remarkable for a relatively new airline which is different from the full service airline. Currently we fly to 19 major cities and passengers travelling on Air Arabia pay 40% lower fares than scheduled carriers.
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How do you manage to keep the fares as low as Rs 2999 from Mumbai to Sharjah?
We have a total team of 300 staff which caters to 19 destinations. We operate five modern Airbus A320 aircraft which caters to all our destinations. Our schedules are planned in such a way that there is maximum utilization of the aircraft and cabin crew with fast turnaround times. By operating one type of aircraft which is the Airbus 320 we save on flight crew training, maintenance and spare parts. Ticketless travel also amounts to huge saving especially on paper and processing costs thus entailing less hassles for the customer. Passengers are given a choice to purchase their food and drinks at a reasonable price on board.
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As Sharjah is our gateway terminal into the UAE, it ensures not only lesser overheads compared to Dubai International Airport but also convenient accessibility from Sharjah through our coach, rent-a-car and limo service to Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai. A passenger can book for this service either at Sharjah International Airport or on board the aircraft.
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How important is the Indian market and how frequent are the flights from India into the UAE?
India is a very important destination as it caters to a significant number of expatriate population in the Gulf. We fly daily with convenient departure timing of 1620 hours arriving into Sharjah at 2100 hours. Thru' Air Arabia, we have made air travel affordable for the Indian traveller and we plan expanding our routes to several more cities in the near future. I feel the Indian market is still untapped and there is huge potential and with air fares between Mumbai and UAE much lower than the Mumbai Delhi fare we have made UAE more accessible to the Indian traveller.
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People who used to travel once or twice a year to the gulf now can travel 6 to 8 times a year due to the low fares. India is undoubtedly one of our key markets for the near future. Our airline carries a diverse mix of travellers ranging from VFR (visiting friends and relatives) which primarily includes parents/children of Indian expatriates in the Gulf, to leisure travellers, small businessmen, traders as well as some labour traffic. We also have carried a number of religious groups.
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Lastly, what are the convenient ways that one can book?
The easiest way to purchase and pay for the flight is by logging onto
www.airarabia.com. Once you have logged on, simply select your flights, pay using your credit card and print your itinerary and you are ready to fly. We at Air Arabia believe in pay less, fly more and we look forward to welcoming your visitors to U.A.E. and also offer them affordable flights from U.A.E. not only to India and Sri Lanka but also to Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen. We plan adding several more destinations in the near future.
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