Doubt that RAK Airways will fly again

The director general of the General Civil Aviation Authority said that he does not expect the grounded carrier to fly again.

RAK Airways is not expected to operate again, the director general of the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said yesterday.

“I don’t think that they are coming back,” Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi said at the GCAA’s launch of a new strategic plan for the sector until 2016.

When asked if the airline could sell its licence or whether that was the purview of the GCAA, he replied: “I will announce something regarding that next week.”

Representatives of RAK Airways were not available for comment yesterday.

Ras Al Khaimah’s only airline suspended all its flights in December for the second time in five years.

Launched in 2006, RAK Airways stopped operations for a first time in 2009 amid a global downturn, but resumed services a year later.

Mr Al Suwaidi said he expected the aviation sector to contribute 15 per cent of the country’s total GDP by 2016, which coincides with the end of GCAA’s three-year strategic plan.

Currently, the sector makes up to 12 per cent of the economy, he said.

Mr Al Suwaidi said that the congestion in the nation’s airspace could be improved by increasing the flow capacity of some neighbouring countries, in particular Oman.

“There’s no magic solution for this issue. What we can do is to reduce and mitigate to some extent. One of the recommendations is to improve the flow capacity of the neighbouring countries. We have a problem that some of our neighbours are not accepting the amount we generate per hour, so as a result this unacceptable overflow accumulates in our airspace.”

Mr Al Suwaidi also said that UAE carriers were likely to focus on new markets such as Latin America and Africa this year.

“Hopefully, we will be able to finalise seven countries in Latin America this year besides Africa. We [will] continue to increase our efforts in Europe, India and Pakistan,” he said.