Air Arabia fleet adds A321neo

Air Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa’s first and largest low-cost carrier (LCC), has received its first Airbus (A321neo Long Range).

The aircraft flew nonstop from Airbus’s facility in Hamburg to Sharjah International Airport. Air Arabia is the first Middle Eastern airline to operate the A321neo LR and this delivery is the first of six aircraft that will join Air Arabia’s fleet that comprises of 53 A320 Family aircraft serving more than 155 routes across the globe from four hubs in Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Morocco, and Egypt.

777-200LR aircraft reconfigured

Emirates Airline has announced that it completed the reconfiguration of its last Boeing 777-200LR aircraft. Emirates invested US$150 million in converting the ten Boeing 777-200LR aircraft in its fleet from three to two class cabins featuring wider Business class seats in a 2-2-2 format and a fully refreshed economy class cabin.

The reconfiguration of the ten aircrafts was executed fully in-house at Emirates Engineering’s facilities in Dubai. The Engineering team spent a total of over 160,000 man hours on the project, working with more than 30 suppliers and handling over 2,700 spare parts at any one time.

CMA okays IPO of Arabian Centres

The Saudi regulator, Capital Market Authority (CMA), said on Monday it had approved the public share listing of Shopping malls operator Arabian Centres Company, owned by the Fawaz Alhokair Group. Arabian Centres will offer 95 million shares representing a 20 percent stake in the company.Reuters reported in February that Arabian Centres was seeking $1 billion from a public share listing in the second quarter. Arabian Centres is a developer, owner and operator of 19 malls across 10 cities in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is encouraging more family-owned companies to list in a bid to deepen its capital markets under a reform push aimed at reducing the kingdom’s reliance on oil revenues.

Compiled from Staff report, Reuters