UAE’s budget carriers expand network amid recovering demand  

With the increasing recovery in air travel, the UAE’s budget carriers, Flydubai and Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, have expanded their network in destinations mostly outside the GCC region.

FlyDubai has announced that starting next year, it will start flights to Cagliari, Sardinia; Corfu, Greece; Milan, Italy and Krabi and Pattaya in Thailand. From November 24 this year, Dubai-based carrier will also resume flights to Saudi Arabia’s Hofuf.

Since the start of the year, Flydubai has launched flights to more than 20 destinations including Pisa and Catania in Italy, Osh in Kyrgyzstan and Samarkand and Namangan in Uzbekistan.

With the new routes, the network of the airline will expand to 113 destinations in 53 countries.

As for Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, the latest route will serve passengers travelling to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia.

The new flight will commence in January 2023 and operate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The air travel market has continued to recover on the back of easing COVID-19 restrictions. Global traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs), rose 67.7% year-on-year in August 2022.

Passenger traffic is now at 73.7% of pre-crisis levels, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Source: Zawya.com