Fly Dubai expands flights into Africa destinations

(eTN) – The inaugural flight by Fly Dubai to Juba, South Sudan’s capital city, took place yesterday, bringing the airline’s destinations on the African continent to 6 and 56 overall, covering Afri

(eTN) – The inaugural flight by Fly Dubai to Juba, South Sudan’s capital city, took place yesterday, bringing the airline’s destinations on the African continent to 6 and 56 overall, covering Africa, the Gulf and wider Middle East, Pakistan, and India and to a growing extent, countries of the former Soviet Union. Fly Dubai has more recently launched flights to the Maldives, one of the airline’s first purely leisure destinations.

Besides Juba, the airline has already been serving Alexandria in Egypt, Khartoum, and Port Sudan in the Republic of the Sudan, Djibouti, and Addis Ababa but is reportedly keen to further expand into the continent as the range of their choice aircraft, the B737-800NG allows. This B737 type is able to fly up to 5,650 kilometers, which would easily see Fly Dubai to cover other Eastern African destinations, where there is a growing need for a no-frills service connecting passengers to Dubai.

Presently it is Air Arabia, which operates out of Sharjah, UAE, on a daily basis into Nairobi as the only Gulf-based low-cost carrier, but with growing numbers of expatriate workers from Eastern Africa in the UAE, the demand for affordable fares will continue to rise.

Fly Dubai’s CEO, Gaith el Gaith, was welcomed at the Juba International Airport by the country’s Vice President, H.E. Dr. Riek Machar, where a brief celebration was held followed by a media briefing during which he was quoted by a Juba-based source as having said: “We are delighted to have started flights to Juba today which is our 56th destination in operation across our route network. We are excited about the trade and travel opportunities that this new route brings to both the Republic of South Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.”

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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