flydubai Celebrates 10 Years, Expands In The CIS
flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith discusses the airline’s accomplishments in its decade and how it has succeeded at launching destinations that were not previously served from Dubai. flydubai, which turns 10 years old on 1-Jun-2019, has expanded its network to over 90 destinations, including more than 20 in the CIS. It recently became the first airline from the Middle East to serve Uzbekistan, which had been the last remaining Central Asian country not yet served by flydubai. Mr Ghaith talks about how flydubai has been able to overcome challenges in entering Uzbekistan and other CIS markets and how it has been able to grow to become one of the leading airlines in the region.
Transcript
Ghaith Al Ghaith:You know, we are very proud to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary in flydubai. And, you know, whatever we have achieved, we are very proud of it, of course. But the most things that I'm very proud of is working with a group of people that we've been able to achieve so much. In these 10 years. Most significant, of course, the fact that, you know, we have flown over 70 million passengers. And the one that is really very special for me is we connected our hub, Dubai, to over 70 destinations that were not served before we started. So that has an enormous impact on the business here and also on the livelihood of other people that live in these places that are connected now to Dubai. We also always said we are going to change the conventions of how people travel, and we also did that because we created these destinations that people never heard of, now at least in our country and in our neighboring countries, they become household names for people to travel. We've introduced new ways or new services as far as the airlines are concerned of our types. And we also changed some minds, especially about some governments being able to relax visa, offer visa to Dubai and to people who live in the UAE far more flexible than before. And I can go on and go on, but the fact that we are here 10 years on working so successfully and effectively is something that we are very proud of. Because, you know, it's very simple, because these places were not served before, and we knew that our market, which is Dubai, has a lot of attraction. So we booked the flight and then people came and we developed it. It's not hard to operate in these places, at least for our model. Our model is very simple. And then there is a lot of people in that part of the world are developing very fast to be able to get it as far as setting up an operation at the airport, Talking, working with the trade and with the public. So they got it. And for us, it's been successful. And one of the things that really matters in these places, that the government also got it, relaxing the visas for people to travel from here to there. Because, you know, it's not far from the UAE. A lot of people like diversity here, and then we've created a lot of demand in our country for people to go there. And again, you know, these are some of the things I myself am so proud of. It's part of these 71 destinations that were not served from Dubai before we started. We are very grateful for the countries and governments for allowing us to be either the first or to allow us to come. And the fact that also our government, the United Arab Emirates, plays a role in relationship with various countries allows us to be able to express ourselves. And, you know, it is not a simple formula, and it is not a formula that fits all, but these are the things that you have to manage in order for you to be able to successfully operate in this country. And so we are, I think, in flydubai, are being sort of looked at as a model of airline or operator that can change things. So hopefully, if you cannot speak about a particular country, But if you look at all these countries and pick one that we've been there before, we've probably been the first to go to, let's say, Azerbaijan, for example. But you see now more people are coming, the airport becoming more flexible, the country becoming more pro-tourism. And I think that is not only because of us, it's because we were there and other people saw the benefits And it helps each other. It's like it's a process. So we manage all of these affairs with all of these agencies to get the best and to operate to all of these places. You work hard and then you have to be in the right place at the right time. There is always something like that, it's beyond, but you have to work hard to ensure That you open this, once it's open, it is huge. I mean, because the potential, I mean, Uzbekistan, 30 million people, you know, and they are coming up to an enormous growth as far as opening up their country. Fantastic. You will only hear positive things from now on Uzbekistan. And we look at all the opportunities. Right now, there are no plans as such, But as things evolve, you know, all of these places, because we've proven in our business model that we add more capacity to these other cities, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Moscow is like 3 and a half, 4 and a half, or 3 and a half hours. And the opportunities here, especially in the winter where the temperature shifts between -25 to +25°C, that's a good enough reason for people to travel. So there is a huge potential for tourism, there is a lot of potential for people to travel from here to these places, and these are big populations. And we look at these opportunities and we start and we build the traffic. This is how it works.
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