Air Arabia’s priorities mixed up

“They [local low-cost carriers] are all busy, but not all of them are successful. They’re all carrying people, and some are doing it for good reasons – to improve business, for example - but some are doing it simply because they love to have another airline.”

Ali also said that the growing number of aircraft in the region -- GCC alone is responsible for 30 percent of the world’s aircraft order book – plus extra competition means that some of the eight Gulf low-cost carriers will go out of business. “I hope that people look at this business not just as a marathon race to see who will have the biggest and most planes.”

Air Arabia was the region’s first low-cost carrier when it launched six years ago. The carrier’s full-year results for 2009 showed that profits were down by 11.3 per cent to $123m, still higher than had been predicted by analysts. Turnover in 2009 fell 4.5 per cent to $544m.