FLYDUBAI’S SHIFT OF 70 FLIGHTS TO DWC WILL NOT AFFECT EAST AFRICA
(Posted 05th August 2015)
When ‘flydubai’ at the end of October shifts up to 70 flights a week to over a dozen destinations to Dubai World Central will travelers to and from the airline’s East Africa destinations not be affected, for now.
The Dubai based low cost airline currently serves Entebbe, Bujumbura, Kigali, Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and all these flights will continue to operate in and out of Dubai International Airport, in short DXB.
However, regular Gulf based sources have suggested that the move of flights from DXB to DWC may be the start of a gradual shift to the Jebel Ali based airport, as capacity for expansion at Dubai’s main airport gets ever more constricted while ‘flydubai’ in turn continues to expand their fleet by at least eight aircraft every year.
Destinations to be additionally served from DWC will be mainly regional and near distance international departures to such airports like Muscat, Kuwait, Doha, Amman, Beirut but also Kathmandu and Chittagong while flights to all these destinations also continue from DXB.
Emirates, the award winning national airline of Dubai, has already given some indication that by 2025 they will shift the bulk if not all of their flights from DXB to DWC and ‘flydubai’ is expected to have completed their move to what will become the world’s largest airport, by then. Presently is the passenger capacity at DWC only estimated to be sufficient for 7 million passengers a year, rising to over 25 million in 2018. When all development stages are complete will DWC be able to handle 150 million passengers a year at which time it will become Dubai’s primary international passenger and cargo airport.
