Safi Airways to Serve Abu Dhabi

Afghanistan carrier Safi Airways is to inaugurate flights between Kabul and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the start of next year, becoming the only operator to provide passenger links on the route. It will launch a four times weekly service from January 5, 2012 using an Airbus A320 configured with 12 Business Class and 132 Economy seats.

“The new flight to Abu Dhabi shows our commitment of Safi Airways’ growth within the GCC region,” said Hamid Safi, Chief Executive Officer, Safi Airways. “With the new addition of the A320, we are determined to keep adding more routes under Safi Airways’ destination list which will establish Safi Airways as the ‘ideal’ Afghanistan airline.”

There is a growing demand for travel between Afghanistan and the UAE. Ariana Afghan Airlines, flydubai, Kam Air and Safi Airways already provide flights to Dubai while Air Arabia offers low-cost links to Sharjah. An estimated 489,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two countries in the past year, up a massive 37.1 per cent on the previous 12 month period. Safi Airways already holds the dominant position in this market with a 37 per cent share of the traffic.