Interview: Safwat Mosallam, EgyptAir CEO

EgyptAir close to placing large narrowbody order: CEO

EgyptAir could order a "considerable" number of narrowbodies within days, chief executive Safwat Mosallam says, standing by its fleet renewal plans despite plummeting demand for tourism in the North African country.

"It's an ongoing process. Maybe in a few days there could be a good announcement," Mosallam told Arabian Aerospace on the sidelines of the IATA AGM in Dublin. "Until we finish negotiations we cannot announce."

EgyptAir originally planned to order up to 70 aircraft in 2016, but re-assessed its needs following the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 in Sinai last October.

Interview: Mohamad El-Hout, Middle East Airlines Chairman

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In the decade following Lebanon's civil war, flag-carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) failed to post one single annual profit.

When net losses peaked at $87 million in 1997, the country's exasperated Central Bank gave Mohamad El-Hout, its chief of financial asset development, the unenviable task of finding a manager to rehabilitate the airline.

Apparently unimpressed with the candidates he proposed, it then handed El-Hout the still-less enviable task of fixing MEA himself.

By anyone's standards, the unwitting chairman has performed phenomenally well. MEA has been profitable in each of the 13 years following his 2001 restructuring programme – a slash-and-burn overhaul that grounded lossmaking routes and shrunk the workforce by about 40% despite strong union opposition...

Iran Aseman follows the straight and narrow

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Though hardly known outside of the Islamic Republic, Iran Aseman Airlines is the largest domestic operator in Iran and potentially one of the prime beneficiaries of the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions.

The airline was established in 1980 and is headed by Hossein Alaei, the former navy chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Despite this apparent military link Aseman has escaped terrorism-related sanctions imposed by the US, which leaves it free to engage with western suppliers now that the broader nuclear embargo is over.

"Aseman has never been on any [terrorism] blacklist since the [Iranian] Revolution of 1979," stressed Mohammad Gorji, the airline's vice-president of executive affairs and fleet development. "We have always been following the rules and regulations...

Iran comes in from the cold

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One of the world's biggest pariah states came in from the cold on 16 January 2016, when the lifting of nuclear sanctions against Iran ushered in a new era of cooperation with the international community.

For the Islamic Republic's long-suffering civil aviation sector, reintegration will be nothing short of transformative.

More than three decades of sanctions have left Iran's airlines in a sorry state. Rigid enforcement action by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a wing of the US Treasury, pushed flag-carrier Iran Air and its 15 domestic rivals into the black market when buying and repairing aircraft.

The sector's ingenuity and perseverance outwitted the best efforts of a US Government that viewed every Iranian plane as a military threat, but success came at a price...

Interview: Abdul Mohsen Junaid, Saudia CEO

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When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began the privatisation of its flag-carrier in 2006, everyone understood that the mainline airline would be the last of the group's six business units to be sold off.

One decade on, the passenger division remains firmly under the wing of its well-endowed government owner. That is no surprise given the company's ongoing financial troubles: chief executive Abdul Mohsen Junaid freely admits that Saudia is "nowhere close to break-even on domestic routes" – a segment that accounts for two-thirds of its seating capacity.

But while Saudia-the-airline is not yet ready to leave the nest, Saudia-the-group has made impressive strides towards privatisation...

Interview: Abdullah Al Sharhan, Kuwait Airways CEO

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In 2014, the average age of an aircraft in Kuwait Airways' fleet was a whopping 20 years.

Today that figure has nearly halved thanks to the induction of a dozen new Airbus jets. Next year it will plummet close to zero as the last ageing units are replaced, completing the flag-carrier's re-birth after decades of political indecision and commercial stagnation.

"By mid-2017 we will go to a completely new fleet, and we will be youngest in the region," beamed new chief executive Abdullah Al Sharhan. "That is after being almost the oldest...

Interview: Sherif Fathy, EgyptAir Chairman

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Egypt's all-important tourism sector has been dealt successive blows since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, with repeated waves of political unrest warding off foreign visitors.

The country's tourism revenue is expected to have fallen below $7 billion in 2015 – a far cry from the $12.5 billion raked in the year before the revolution.

Flag-carrier EgyptAir has been front and centre of the downturn, sinking about $1.5 billion into the red since 2011 as holidaymakers turned to perceived safe-havens elsewhere in the region. The airline's fortunes had seemed to be rising in 2014/15, but were derailed again in October when a charter flight operated by Russia's Metrojet crashed in the Sinai Peninsula...

Interview: Samer Majali, SaudiGulf Airlines President

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Anyone who has been following the liberalisation of Saudi Arabia's aviation sector will be aware of one thing above all else: it moves at a glacial pace.

The kingdom's civil aviation authority, GACA, awarded economic licences to two start-up carriers back in December 2012, promising to inject much-needed competition in the local market. Al Qahtani Group-owned SaudiGulf Airlines and Qatar Airways-owned Al Maha Airways were selected from a shortlist of seven bidders.

There followed a woefully predictable succession of missed deadlines, with 2015 marking the third year in a row that both SaudiGulf and Al Maha have failed to get off the ground...

Cham Wings the last hope for Syrian expats

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Cham Wings is filling the void left by Syria's troubled flag-carrier but, as Martin Rivers reports, it could face the same obstacles to long-term viability.

Syria's Cham Wings has announced the addition of Oman and Sudan to its route network, as the Damascus-based carrier plays an increasingly prominent role in the local aviation sector amid declining fortunes at state-owned Syrian Arab Airlines.

Twice weekly flights to Muscat were launched on 3 September, and at the time of writing a once weekly service to Khartoum was scheduled to begin on 16 October...

Jordan deal holds few fears for Air Arabia

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Air Arabia moved a step closer to regional domination in May, when Queen Alia International Airport in Amman became the low-cost group's fifth base of operations.

Group chief executive Adel Ali admits that 2015 is a risky time to launch a subsidiary in Jordan, which borders Syria to the north and Iraq to the east. Tourism flows to the country have been depressed ever since the Arab Spring uprisings, and there is little prospect of a sustained recovery while the so-called Islamic State (IS) lays siege to much of the Levant.

Yet with geopolitical unrest never far from the headlines in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Ali is less concerned about Air Arabia Jordan's near-term challenges than its future prospects...

Interview: Paul Gregorowitsch, Oman Air CEO

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In the deteriorating war of words between America and the Gulf countries over bilateral traffic rights, it is easy to forget that European capitals have long imposed ceilings on the number of flights that Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways can operate to their airports.

The restrictions are not solely targeted at the 'big three' Gulf carriers. Even mid-sized operators such as Oman Air – which no-one seriously accuses of capacity dumping – have had their wings clipped on the continent.

Oman's flag-carrier currently serves Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport four-time weekly from its home base of Muscat. Repeated attempts to make the route a daily service have been rebuffed on the French side, prompting chief executive Paul Gregorowitsch to say he feels "discriminated against" by closed-skies policies.

Europe, he argues, has adopted a misguided approach to civil aviation that rewards legacy incumbents while handicapping emerging players from the Gulf...

Interview: Mohamed Bouderbala, Air Algerie CEO

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Air Algerie is hoping to draw a line in the sand with the appointment of new chief executive Mohamed Bouderbala. Martin Rivers and Vincent Chappard look at the challenges facing Algeria's flag-carrier.

Mohamed Bouderbala takes to the helm of Air Algerie following a tumultuous period at the state-owned flag-carrier, which suffered its worst ever disaster in 2014 and is coming under increasing pressure at home to improve its service levels and reliability...

A watchful eye in the sky

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The official launch of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) in October 2009 put Europe at the cutting edge of satellite-augmentation technology, which improves the accuracy of Global Positioning System (GPS) data used by airlines around the world.

EGNOS is one of four Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs) that uses supplementary ground stations and transponders to sharpen existing satellite signals, reducing the margin of error from 17 metres on standard GPS receivers to about three metres. The other three SBASs are WAAS in America, MSAS in Japan and GAGAN in India.

For airlines in these regions, augmented GPS signals translate to more accurate flight-paths that reduce fuel burn and associated costs; enhanced access to airports with operational constraints; and – above all – improved safety throughout flight...

More tributaries for Nile Air

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Egypt’s Nile Air will add Iraq and Sudan to its growing network this summer as it makes good on a pledge to double its fleet size to four Airbus A320s.

The Al Tayyar Travel Group affiliate took delivery of a leased A320 from Aviation Capital Group in April, and at the time of writing was poised to receive a fourth unit from AerCap.

It has also resolved an outstanding purchase agreement with Airbus, opting to replace a stalled order for nine A321s with two A320s. That owned pair will be delivered in the first half of 2018...

Interview: Saloua Essghaier, Tunisair President

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To many international observers, Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution is best known as the catalyst for the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa – popular demonstrations which, by and large, fell short of their lofty aspirations.

But, for Tunisians, the legacy of the Jasmine Revolution is much rosier. The country last year held its first open and democratic election since independence from France in 1956, swearing in 88-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi as its new president.

The Economist hailed the vote as “proof of a precious truth: the Arab world can change for the better, and Islam can be reconciled with democracy”. Such idealism may be hard to stomach when considering the disastrous effects of the Arab Spring elsewhere – unleashing civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, and replacing one dictator with another in Egypt – but it is a kernel of hope that must be preserved...

Interview: Ulrich Ogiermann, Qatar Airways Chief Cargo Officer

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Ulrich Ogiermann successfully steered Cargolux, Europe's largest cargo carrier, through troubled times. But, as Martin Rivers discovers, the industry veteran has found an even greater challenge at growth-obsessed Qatar Airways.

Following years of uncorroborated allegations against the Gulf's fast-expanding carriers, the release of a 55-page dossier detailing $42 billion of government subsidies over ten years has put the region's big three operators firmly on the defensive.

Qatar Airways is front and centre in the dispute, facing accusations by America's Partnership for Open & Fair Skies – a lobby group headed by three US legacy carriers – that it has benefited from $16 billion of unfair state support...

Interview: Rasha Al Roumi, Kuwait Airways Chairwoman

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Readers would have been forgiven for voicing scepticism in May 2013, when Kuwait Airways unveiled a comprehensive fleet renewal programme involving 25 aircraft purchases and 12 interim leases.

That the loss-making flag-carrier sorely needed modernisation was questioned by no-one – most of its existing 18 aircraft dated back to the early 1990s – but Kuwaiti politicians have a long history of meddling with, and ultimately derailing, its plans.

In 2007, most controversially, the government scrapped a newly placed order for 12 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and seven Airbus A320s. Then, in 2013, incumbent chairman Sami Al Nesf was fired for defying parliament’s wishes and trying to acquire five aircraft from India’s Jet Airways...

Royal Air Maroc raises the standard

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News that Royal Air Maroc grew its African traffic by 16% over the 12 months to October 2014 – transporting 1.3 million passengers across the continent – might seem perplexing against a backdrop of both the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and regional instability in North Africa.

There is no denying that Morocco’s flag-carrier is heavily exposed to the Ebola crisis, serving about 30 West African destinations, including the worst-affected countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Its home base in the Maghreb region of North Africa also places the airline in a volatile neighbourhood wracked first by the Arab Spring and now by a series of deepening Islamist insurgencies.

Yet despite the turmoil engulfing both sub-regions, Royal Air Maroc is not only expanding on the continent but, more remarkably, it is doing so while turning over a profit...

Interview: Abdul Wahab Teffaha, AACO Secretary General

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Whatever AACO's executive committee was planning for this year's annual general meeting (AGM), their agenda has been torn asunder by two catastrophic events still gripping the airline industry.

Malaysia Airlines cruelly bore the brunt of both disasters – the loss, literally, of MH370 in March, and the shooting down of MH17 in July – but all aviation stakeholders now face the grave responsibility of plugging safety gaps and improving regulatory protocols. No region is more burdened with this collective duty than the Middle East, whose fast-expanding airlines operate in the most volatile of neighbourhoods.

At the same time, though, more familiar concerns still weigh heavily on the region's airlines. In European capitals, increasingly protectionist measures are being called on to fight Gulf competition; in Arab capitals, the 2004 Damascus Convention is falling well short of its promise to liberalise Middle Eastern skies...

Libya starts again

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In early 2012, shortly after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by an alliance of tribal militias, Libyan Airlines chief executive Khaled Taynaz spoke to Arabian Aerospace about the prospects for the war-weary country and its well-developed civil aviation sector.

Though careful not to downplay the challenges ahead, Taynaz painted an overwhelmingly positive picture for the future. His mood matched the broader sentiment sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring.

Just two years on, however, events on the ground seem anything but upbeat. The revolutions that engulfed the region have largely evolved into new dictatorships or entrenched civil warfare; many of the militias that united against despots are now turning their guns on each other; and the worrisome security climate has struck fear in the hearts of western governments, which are now mobilising their own forces for potential conflict...