Wataniya Airways drops plans to fly to Iran

10 May 2010

The airline is scheduled to start three more routes in 2010

Kuwaiti carrier Wataniya Airways has temporarily shelved plans to start a new route to Iran.

“We are not dismissing the prospect of flying to Iran sometime in the future, it’s only that with five aircraft and two on order until October, our choices have to be delicate,” a spokesman tells MEED.

In November 2009, the airline said it had plans to launch new routes to Alexandria in Egypt and Iran in 2010 (MEED 24:11:09).

At that time the airline had not finalised which city in Iran it would fly to or the frequency of flights.

However, the spokesman for the airline now says that the north-eastern city of Mashhad was being considered.

Wataniya is scheduled to start flights to Alexandria, its third destination in Egypt, at the end of May.

The carrier started flying to Istanbul at the beginning of May and is also planning to begin flights to Vienna in early June, Wataniya’s chief executive George Cooper tells MEED.

The airline will also start a new route to Rome in the summer bringing the airline’s total number of destinations to 12.

The airline has a fleet currently consisting of five aircraft and is scheduled to take delivery of two more Airbus A320 aircraft by the end of October 2010 and is likely to acquire more aircraft in 2011.

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