Eastern Europe, CIS on the flightplan for cheaper holidays for UAE travellers

Eastern Europe and CIS countries are on the flightplan to offer cheaper holiday alternatives, as international carriers launch new routes and greater connectivity for UAE residents.

While local budget carrier, flydubai has had an active April with flight launches to Mineralnye Vody in Russia, Osh in Kyrgyzstan and Dushanbe in Tajikistan, two other airlines are waiting in the wings to roll out operations to the same regions.

FlyGeorgia is the latest player in the market, which announced its plan to increase its flights between Dubai and capital Tiblisi to lure tourist traffic in the coming season, a month after Budapest-based budget carrier Wizz Air announced launch of its operations from October 28, with airfares starting as low as Dh349.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, Tannaz Hosseinpour, Director of Public Relations, FlyGeorgia Airlines said: “FlyGeorgia is currently flying to Dubai three times a week into Terminal 1.  We are looking to increase to four flights a week shortly.

“The airline is positioning itself to be a gateway to Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with the increase of Middle Eastern destinations. Georgia is strategically located and it is our goal to make Tbilisi into a hub.”

At the launch of operations to CIS region destinations, Dushanbe and Osh, flydubai’s CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith, said: “With the addition of these two new routes we now have a network of 20 destinations across the CIS, which is a tremendous achievement.

“We marked our entry to the Kyrgyz market back in February 2012 with flights to the capital, Bishkek, and through adding Osh and Dushanbe we are able to link even more underserved destinations to our ever growing network.”

The airline stated that the past 12 months have seen overall air traffic between Dubai and Bishkek grow by 157 per cent.

Meanwhile, budget carrier Wizz Air also announced it would start operations from the new Dubai World Central to four cities – Budapest, Hungary, Bucharest, Romania, Kiev, Ukraine and Sofia, Bulgaria.

With plans to operate 14 weekly flights at its launch, Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Wizz Air, said during its announcement last month: “Flying between Europe and Dubai for as low as Dh349 is truly unprecedented. People who want to fly from Dubai to other West European cities like London can take Wizz Air’s connecting flight and reach there for just 100 euros (Dh470). Passengers can take our flights from Budapest to London for just 30 euros.”

Commenting on the number of passengers the airline is likely to carry in the first year of operations, Varadi said: “I expect Wizz Air to carry at least 250,000 passengers on our UAE network in the first year of operations. I expect we’ll announce more exciting routes and more low fares to Dubai as we move forward with our expansion plans.”

FlyGeorgia’s Hosseinpour called the GCC and the UAE playing “key roles in the airline’s growth and expansion plans.”

She added: “The airline is targeting the business traveller who is interested in investing in Georgia and the CIS region, tourists who want to visit an incredible tourist destination with four seasons (beaches, ski slopes) that is only a short three-hour flight away, adventure seekers who are looking to discover and explore new destinations, sports enthusiasts (hunting, rafting), and those travellers looking for new and safe country to explore with numerous and endless opportunities.”

The airline, which aims to break-even by year-end, is on the same model of flydubai, which launched its destination visas earlier this year.

The Dubai-based low-cost carrier has introduced a new facilitation service, offering passengers travelling on its flights to Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine the opportunity to apply for a visa through the flydubai Travel Shop at Dubai Terminal 2.

Al Ghaith said: “In March we announced more flights to both Russia and Ukraine. Together with Azerbaijan, we will soon offer 46 flights a week to these destinations and thanks to the new visa facilitation service it will be even easier for people to visit these countries for leisure or business.

“We try to make travel a little less stressful at every step of journey and through working with the respective embassies we are helping to meet this goal.”

Hosseinpour said: “GCC Nationals do not need a visa to travel to Georgia. They receive a visa on arrival. For other travellers who may require a visa to visit Georgia, our branded agency FlyGeorgia Holidays can handle all visa requests.”

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