FLYING INTO THE RED POSES CHALLENGES FOR FLYDUBAI
(Posted 30th August 2017)
While FlyDubai is apparently still planning to expand their East Africa services, in particular to their Tanzanian destinations Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, have news emerged that Dubai’s low cost airline has again incurred significant losses.
Earlier in the year it was reported here that the Chairman of the company had issued a directive that the LCC was to cooperate much more closely with senior cousin Emirates to cut cost through synergy effects to be accomplished through closer alignment of schedules and other measures.
The nearly 39 million US Dollars loss in the first half of 2017 is, given the owners of the company, not too alarming but nevertheless a pointer into the direction that perhaps other cost saving measures are in the pipeline to stem the financial bleed and return to profitability.
FlyDubai also serves Entebbe in Uganda several times each week but has yet to commence flights to Kenya where the airline was some time ago granted landing rights in Mombasa.
While expanding their network, mostly to Russia and the Balkans, has FlyDubai yet to reach the European heartlands which could trigger a wave of additional passengers connecting in Dubai to various African holiday destinations in particular in East Africa.
