Middle East & North Africa

Saudi Arabia registered more international arrivals than any other Arab nation during the first nine months of 2022, as government officials target 100 million annual visitors by the end of this decade.

Emirates is increasing its services to Sydney and Melbourne. The airline will also restart services to Christchurch, New Zealand via Sydney.

Etihad Cargo has enhanced its customer service offering, restructuring its existing Customer Contact Centre team into two separate units focused on the UAE and the rest of the world.

Qatar Executive (QE), the private jet charter division of the Qatar Airways Group, experienced significant year-over-year (YOY) growth in flight arrivals and departures during 2022.

Emirates has successfully completed the ground engine testing for one of its GE90 engines on a Boeing 777-300ER using 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

The saying goes that an airline is either short of aircraft or short of pilots – but, as Tom Batchelor reports, supply chain bottlenecks, an unexpectedly rapid recovery in post-Covid domestic and international air travel, and a tight labour market risk leaving operators in need of both.

Pegasus Airlines has closed the first ever sustainability-linked aircraft-secured term loan (SLL).

The Phenom 300MED, has received the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Wizz Air has added new routes from London Gatwick Airport and London Luton to Turkey.

Turkish Airlines, and Mongolia’s flag carrier, MIAT Mongolian Airlines recently signed a codeshare agreement.

Etihad Airways is ramping up flights between Abu Dhabi and Jakarta from daily to double-daily.

NASA has selected Boeing and its industry team to lead the development and flight testing of a full-scale Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) demonstrator aircraft.

Global aviation consultancy Alton Aviation looks set to expand its Middle East business, thanks to the success of its Dubai office, opened in early 2022.

Emirates has announced that it will reintroduce its flagship A380 to Casablanca as part of the airline’s ramp up of operations to Morocco.

Etihad Cargo is expanding its capacity offering to the Chinese market by introducing an additional weekly Abu Dhabi – Shanghai freighter flight from 2 February 2023.

Qatar Airways has signed a comprehensive codeshare agreement with Air Serbia.

XTEND has been awarded a contract by Israel Ministry of Defense for the development and supply of a first-of-its-kind multi-drone operating system.

Egypt is continuing a major modernisation of its armed forces – and especially the air force. This has, in recent years, discarded its last F-4E Phantoms, Dassault Mirage 5s, and Chinese built F-7 ‘Fishbeds’, and is replacing them with more modern fighter types.

Etihad has signed the world’s first multi-year commercial production contract with Satavia to integrate contrail management within routine operations.

UTC, the new state of the art Indra system, went live at Bahrain Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications’ Civil Aviation Affairs (CAA) facilities this week without any interruptions.

Aerospace Xelerated has announced the 11 start-ups working on digital services and solutions that will join their fourth cohort to solve key challenges for the aerospace sector.

Gulfstream Aerospace has earned four National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Sustainable Flight Department Accreditations.

Emirates will ramp up frequencies to Hong Kong with a daily non-stop service from its Dubai hub, starting from 29 March 2023.

Gulf Air will return to some of its favourite beach destinations for the summer season of 2023, as the airline also adds the new route of Goa.

Air cargo company Challenge Group will start the new year with an inaugural Challenge Airlines flight out of Istanbul, Turkey on 25 January 2023.