Marwan Boodai

'We are very proud to hear that two Saudi Arabian private airlines are planned to launch in November,' says Chairman and CEO Marwan Boodai. 'More competition is inevitable but we can still claim the first-mover advantage and are delighted to have been the first low-cost airline launched in this region.'

Jazeera Airways started life in June 2004 with the completion of its highly successful $24 million initial public offering. The IPO sold a 70% stake to 36,500 Kuwaiti nationals or 1 in every 25 Kuwaitis and was 12 times oversubscribed. A group of 80 business partners put up $10 million for the 30% balance. There is no government stake whatsoever.

'Convincing the authorities to let us launch a private sector airline in the first place was a major challenge,' says Mr. Boodai. 'This is a region where the governments dominate aviation and we challenged that position. But we were convinced that a low-cost airline model would work.

'However, we have not compromised on quality. We have new aircraft with leather seats, in-flight entertainment and a premium service called Jazeera Plus. We also have the best outsourcing partners such as Lufthansa Technik. And 30 per cent of our bookings are from our website www.jazeeraairways.com.

It is a long way from the days when passengers in Kuwait could only purchase tickets from a travel agent or the airline's office. And passengers had to reconfirm within 72 hours of flying and still risked losing their seat due to overbooking.

Adds Mr. Boodai: 'So far the market demand has exceeded our expectations and the growing open skies policy of Middle East governments has greatly assisted our growth. This is a big change like that seen in Europe. And we have open skies in Dubai, Doha, Kuwait, Bahrain, Beirut and Egypt outside Cairo. In Kuwait we broke a 50-year airline monopoly.'

This week Jazeera Airways announced a rights issue to raise its capital to $70 million to help to fund expansion. To date all the funding of aircraft has been through Islamic finance and $119 million of senior debt was raised for the first four A320 Airbus aircraft. The plan is to expand to 10 aircraft over the next few years.

'Our first challenge was to establish Jazeera Airways as a household name in Kuwait, which we have done,' says Mr. Boodai. 'We launched 13 destinations in nine months and are the fastest growing carrier in the Middle East.

'We have empowered the passenger with the choice over whether to pay for food and extra luggage capacity. In the next year we want to double our passenger numbers and expand our fleet for further growth. We know that the market and demand are there!'

Will Jazeera Airlines end up like Ryan Air of Ireland which has recently launched a hostile $1.9 billion bid for the national carrier Aer Lingus? Mr. Boodai just smiles.