RAK Airways to purchase four new aircrafts

Speaking at the Ras Al Khaimah Conference 2008 held recently, Ravindran said "We have already initiated the aircraft purchase process and the agreements with the manufacturers will be signed next month. The initial deliveries are expected by 2011 or 2012 and until that time we will be going for leased aircraft." The new aircrafts would be either Airbus 320 or Boeing 737- 800.

Ravindran said that RAK Airways, which started flying in November 2007 with one leased aircraft, will have three leased aircraft by April 2008 and hope to expand the fleet to eight aircraft by April 2009.

On the expansion plans of the airline, he said that RAK Airways hopes to fly to 2-3 destinations in India by March this year along with destinations in Nepal, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Beirut. The airline currently offers services to Dhaka and Colombo.

He said that the response to the new airline was remarkable with the Dhaka route having over 70 % capacity and good response from the Colombo sector as well.

"We will be looking to new markets in East Africa, Far East and Europe after we consolidate our regional and South Asian markets," he added.

He said that the airline would have a capacity to fly 1.4 million passengers by April 2009 and hopes to carry atleast 1 million passengers, at 70 percent capacity.

"The massive tourism projects currently implementation in Ras Al Khaimah and the projected population increase is expected to boost the prospects of the airline.

Raveendran said that the airline will adopt a hub and spoke network strategy by attracting passengers from other countries to Ras Al Khaimah and then flying them to other destinations.