TTN

Royal Jordanian hoping for stable oil prices

Share  
Majali

Royal Jordanian Airlines CEO SAMER MAJALI spoke to Maysa Zureikat about the company’s developments during 2008

How has 2008 fared for the company?
In terms of passengers numbers, the year was excellent. For the first nine months there was an increase of around 18 per cent (around 2 million passengers) in comparison to the same period last year. Furthermore, total revenues increased by 34 per cent, with operating revenues reaching around JD24 million, while the net results registered a loss of JD 2 million for the first nine months of year.
This was due to the fuel prices for 2008 and 2009 - the company had bought around 30 per cent of its total consumption at a high price.
Air cargo revenues had increased to around JD 32 million with an increase of around 20 per cent compared to the same period last year.

What impact has the current economic climate had on the company?
As others within the industry, it has been affected from the cargo side. In October 2008, the volume of cargo decreased by 19 per cent. However we are still experiencing growth, but for the coming months, especially during the winter season, we expect a decrease in the number of European tourists, which is due to the recession deeming tourism to become less of a priority for people.

Have your Middle East flights been affected?
There has been no affect on our Middle East traffic. Moreover, tourism in the Arab world has not been affected as it consists mainly of travel for business, health, visiting family and for education purposes. In December, we also experienced a growth for festivities and special occasions travel.
The main challenges Middle Eastern carriers face is the unprecedented rise in fuel prices.

Are there plans to increase frequencies in the ME network?
Our new vision focuses on both the Levant and the Middle East as we always look to increase the frequency of our flights in this region. For example, we have three flights between Amman and Beirut per day and we plan to increase them to four. We also have 3-4 daily flights to Cairo as well as daily flights to Dubai, Damascus and Irbil. Furthermore, being part of the One World alliance, we always have connections between flights and have Amman as a hub for Middle Eastern destinations.

What about new destinations?
We will be resuming our trips to Brussels in April. We are currently conducting market research on destinations including Casablanca, Johannesburg, Madina and Ankara and have lately opened our trips to Kiev in May 2008, with flights to Hong Kong, Montréal and Budapest in 2007. We also have 57 destinations to which we fly directly from Amman as well as 700 indirect destinations through one world alliance.

What can we see onboard Royal Jordanian in 2009?
In terms of services, we have 28 aircraft which we plan to increase to 30 in 2009. About 70 per cent of our aircraft are brand new and have the latest entertainment systems as well as sufficient space between the seats. We lately modernised airbus 310 for long trips and will be renovating the A340 which flies to US and Canada. We also made an agreement with Boeing to bring in 787s in 2010, but this got delayed by Boeing itself and the fleets will be available in 2013, mainly for long haul destination fleets.
In addition, our in-flight menus change all the time based on surveys conducted onboard.

What is the single most important challenge you are looking to overcome in 2009?
We hope the oil prices remain at such levels or even decrease to lesser ones. We also hope that the economic crisis gets resolved because if it does not, it will affect us as well as other companies worldwide given that the travel industry is directly affected by such crisis.

Spacer