Jazeera flourishing in the low-cost revolution

It is the easyJet of the Middle East, splashing its light turquoise blue corporate colour everywhere it goes, just as easyJet is unmistakeably orange.

Marwan Boodai, chairman & CEO of Jazeera, has been bullish about breaking the 50-year monopoly of Kuwait Airways. He also hopes that Jazeera will be the main operator of Airbus aircraft in the region by 2014. To help that along he announced the creation of Saheeb Aircraft Leasing in October 2008 – a new company backed by NBK Capital and DVB Bank of Germany.

Competition in the Gulf region is hotting up. Air Arabia took the lead when it launched operations from Sharjah in 2003 and now has 17 aircraft with 43 on order. Then there is Nasair in Saudi Arabia, with seven A320s and four EMB 190/195s. Nasair added two round-trips a week between Jeddah and Kuwait to its schedule on 14 May, which is in addition to the two round-trips a week it has from Riyadh to Kuwait.

Then there is flydubai, which started operations on 1 June 2009 with a fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Jazeera has felt the effects of the new entrant to the market, with Dubai declining the Kuwaiti airline’s renewal of Dubai-Beirut operations for its summer schedule – forcing it to relocate its hub to Kuwait.

Steven Greenway, Jazeera Airways chief commercial officer, told regional travel agents, gathered for its awards evening at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Kuwait: “We have a huge range of routes being launched in the space of a month, while also taking two more A320 aircraft. So we will go to 27 cities in 15 countries, with 31 non-stop routes, 386 connections and 462 flights a week. We have experienced 68% year-on-year growth in available seats and will probably be bigger than Kuwait Airways this year in terms of passenger numbers.”

Greenway, speaking to Arabian Aerospace at the awards evening, said Jazeera had been forced to move its hub back from Dubai to Kuwait in time for its summer schedule after Dubai declined the renewal of its Dubai-Beirut route.

Captain Falah Al-Shammari, Jazeera vice president – training, says: “We’re taking delivery of two aircraft, which requires a lot of work. This will take our fleet to ten aircraft. The summer schedule and network plan is done so it is now our role to put it into action.

“We have always been based in Kuwait but have had to move our hub back from Dubai due to regulatory restrictions.”

Greenway says Kuwait International Airport is “really short of gates” and adds, when asked about airport development: “We’d rather build our own terminal.”

He says Jazeera has 30 more aircraft on order and is seeing little sign of a slow-down. “For example the Dubai route is standing up really well – it’s basically a shuttle as we are going daily; up from six round-tips a week.”

But Jazeera accepts that the airport will remain a bottleneck for a while at least. “We have seven or eight departures at Kuwait in the space of half-an-hour in the morning, so we are working hard to enhance check-in facilities etc,” says Greenway.

Jazeera has a business class of sorts, which it calls J+ class – this involves blocking off middle seats and enhanced service. “We have launched a range of fare products over the past couple of months,” says Greenway. “This includes tailoring Jazeera Plus as ‘affordable luxury’, and Jazeera Freedom, our new flexible product for the corporate traveller. This is especially good on the Dubai route.

“Then there is Jazeera Light. This is an everyday low fare. Finally there is Jazeera Easy – which offers unbeatable deals.”

Greenway says there are further far-product enhancements to come such as seat selection for free, and dedicated check-in. He also points out that Jazeera has a “permanent happy hour”, a sale from 1-2pm every day for those who had registered on its web system in May.

One of the agents given an award by Jazeera was Boodai Aviation – which teamed with the company to create an “innovative franchise operation”, since trialled in Lebanon. Says Greenway: “It provides a store and high street presence and allows us to access new market segments.” Greenway adds that the carrier is opening a number of stores in Kuwait over the next couple of months. Boodai is a large Kuwaiti conglomerate.

Other initiatives coming soon include GDS distribution, BSP settlement, and codesharing/interlining agreements. “Our systems are not built to work with GDS systems in a dynamic way but we have a new supplier, which will soon put us on GDSs,” says Greenway, adding: “Many airlines are knocking on our doors wanting to codeshare/interline.

“We have modified and improved our network by listening to customer feedback, for example looking at the times people prefer to travel.