Since we conducted tons of analysis about Europe’s low-cost carriers, such as Ryanair, easyJet, Vueling, and Wizz Air, we thought it is time to provide some Middle East details. Therefore, we selected Flydubai, Air Arabia, Gulf Air, and flynas — and looked at the flight volume, their punctuality, and the number of cancellations. Here are the results!
Flydubai, Air Arabia, Guf Air & flynas — Flight Volume Benchmark
Overall, the four Middle East low-cost carriers —still— perform a reduced flight volume compared to pre-COVID time. On average, they operate only 50%-60% of the pre-COVID volume. Moreover, except for Gulf Air, the carriers operate in a similar volume range.
flydubai, as the biggest of the four, operates 150-160 daily flights, resulting in 830 flights in September so far. Air Arabia is only ten daily flights behind and has operated 700 flights from 1st to 5th September. flynas, again, is only ten flights behind Air Arabia and has conducted 660 flights in September. Bahrain’s Gulf Air is the only airline of the four that operates a two-digit daily flight volume at the moment (80 flights).
Flydubai, Air Arabia, Guf Air & flynas — Punctuality Benchmark
When looking at the on-time performance of the four Middle East low-cost carriers in September, all of them have achieved remarkable results so far. As a result, all of the airlines have achieved an OTP above 90%. In addition, Gulf Air leads the list with a punctuality level of 95.6%, followed by Flydubai with 93.7%.
On the other side, flynas achieved an on-time performance of 93%. With 91.6%, Air Arabia achieved the weakest performance of the four airlines. However, in global and benchmark, their result still reflects a solid performance.
Flydubai, Air Arabia, Guf Air & flynas — Regularity Benchmark
Since we always receive some questions, here’s the explanation of this indicator first. Regularity reflects the number of flights that have been operated in relation to total scheduled flights. In other words: Regularity reflects the percentage of flights that have not been canceled. Overall, this value should be above 99%.
Air Arabia positively stands out with regularity of 100%. Accordingly, the carrier hasn’t canceled any flight from 1st to 5th September. flynas’ performance is quite close to 99% and therefore also very solid. However, on the other side, flydubai has canceled 2.8% of its flights from 1st to 5th September. Even worse: Gulf Air seems to face some serious issues — resulting in 11% canceled flights and subsequently a poor regularity value of 89%.
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