AFRAA: Afriqiyah Plans Its International Relaunch

Posted 24/11/2011

Libyan carrier Afriqiyah Airways is hoping to relaunch scheduled international operations from December 1, bringing a bright end to what has been a very difficult year for the airline. After working to complete a long-planned merger with fellow state-controlled carrier Libyan Airlines, its plans were thrown into disarray following the uprising in the country, the grounding of the carrier and the resultant military action.

After the ousting and recent capture and death of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is now working to rebuild its damaged aviation business and Afriqiyah Airways is in the process of returning to the air. At least one of its Airbus A300 fleet was destroyed by shelling at Tripoli International Airport and its headquarters were destroyed at the height of the conflict. Engineers are currently completing extensive checks on the remainder of the fleet to check for bullet damage.

“It has been a very difficult situation for everybody involved with the airline,” its Chief Executive Officer, Rammah Ettir told The HUB at this week’s African Airlines Association Annual General Assembly in Marrakech, Morocco. “It is difficult for us to plan ahead. It is not yet clear where we stand. The interim government is expected to be in place within the week, but we don’t currently know what their plans are for the aviation business.”

Afriqiyah Airways has developed a draft business plan which could see the resumption of international flights from the beginning of December. The carrier is currently offering some domestic services, although these are at this stage predominantly on a humanitarian basis. The initial route map will cover Alexandria, Faro, Istanbul and Tunis and will be served by a single Airbus A319. In the longer-term the airline plans to resume flights to most of the destinations it served prior to the conflict.

The table below is a snapshot of the airline’s network from this time last year.

AFRIQIYAH AIRWAYS NETWORK (non-stop weekly flights; November 14-20, 2010)
Origin	Destination	Aircraft Type	Weekly Flights	Weekly Seats
Tripoli (TIP)	Abidjan (ABJ)	320	3	450
	Accra (ACC)	320 / 332	4	728
	Amsterdam (AMS)	319 / 320	3	424
	Bamako (BKO)	320	2	300
	Bangui (BGF)	319 / 320	2	274
	Brussels (BRU)	319 / 320	4	548
	Cairo (CAI)	320	5	750
	Cotonou (COO)	320	3	450
	Dakar (DKR)	319	4	496
	Douala (DLA)	319 / 320	2	274
	Dubai (DXB)	319	6	744
	Dusseldorf (DUS)	319 / 320	4	548
	Johannesburg (JNB)	332	2	428
	Khartoum (KRT)	319 / 320	2	274
	Kinshasa N’djili (FIH)	319	3	372
	Lagos (LOS)	320	4	600
	Lome (LFW)	320	2	300
	London Gatwick (LGW)	320 / 332	7	1306
	Lyon St-Exupéry (LYS)	319	3	372
	Milan Malpensa (MXP)	319 / 320	3	398
	Ndjamena (NDJ)	320	2	300
	Niamey (NIM)	319 / 320	3	424
	Nouakchott (NKC)	319	2	248
	Ouagadougou (OUA)	319 / 320	3	424
	Paris CDG (CDG)	320 / 332	10	1628
	Rome Fiumicino (FCO)	319 / 320	5	698
TOTAL			93	13,758

According to Mohamed Elmeshkhi, Organizations and International Relations Manager, Afriqiyah Airways, the interim government will be in place for an eight month period and he expects it will be a couple of years until we get a clear understanding of its policy and return to some stability in the country. In terms of the long-planned consolidation with Libyan Airlines, this is still likely and he confirmed that the carrier remains “open” to a merger, suggesting that this year’s events could help push this through to a conclusion.

Afriqiyah Airways launched operations on December 1, 2001 and should be celebrating its tenth anniversary next week. “I think we would say that it is only our ninth birthday again as we have lost a whole year,” remarked Mohamed Elmeshkhi. “Although you could perhaps say we have lost nine years of history and are starting once again with the rebirth of the airline,” he added.

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PLEASE NOTE: From March 7, 2012 schedule data for all news stories has been extracted from OAG Schedules iNET; All GDS data is based on a live GDS update on the day of publication; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending December 2011. All information is subject to change.

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