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 six and fifty six overall, covering Africa, the Gulf and wider Middle East, Pakistan and India and to a growing extent countries of the former Soviet Union. Notably has Fly Dubai more recently launched flights to the Maldives, one of the airline’s first purely leisure destination.
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 kilometres, 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 LCC 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’.