Air Arabia in talks with manufacturers over fleet renewal

Air Arabia CEO Adel Ali said the airline is currently in talks with Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier over their respective A320neo, B737 MAX and CSeries offerings for possible delivery from 2017 onwards, reports ch-aviation.

Ali said: “There’s a team spending a lot of time talking to manufacturers looking at our requirements. We’re hoping that if all goes well, some time in 2014 we’ll be looking at another order of aircraft.”

Analyst Saj Ahmad commented: “As the first LCC in the GCC, and celebrating its tenth anniversary, it comes as little surprise that Air Arabia wants to keep expanding its ever successful network by deploying more fuel efficient airplanes.

“With the A320 already in its fleet, and another 27 jets yet to induct, it seems almost certain that Air Arabia will stick with the A320neo for its future needs. The current A320 fleet is powered by the CFM56, leading me to believe that Pratt and Whitney have a tough sell if they believe they can coax Air Arabia into not ordering a LEAP-1A powered A320neo fleet.”

Ahamd added: “CFM and Airbus both have the edge here, and while Boeing has flipped an A320 customer to the 737MAX, Silkair, it should not be entirely ruled out that the US company could win this campaign too - especially if Air Arabia can be convinced of the benefits of churning over its relatively young A320 fleet for 737MAXs.”