Arab airlines plan Arabesk alliance

Sabre Airline Solutions and the Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO), in close coordination with six Arab airlines, are studying the creation of a new ground-breaking alliance.

Egypt Air, Gulf Air, Middle East Airlines, Oman Air, Royal Jordanian Airlines and Saudi Arabian Airlines are participating in the study to create "Arabesk," the first airline alliance that coordinates the schedules of six close competitors.

The goal of creating this pan-Arab alliance is to provide financial benefits that the carriers could not achieve individually. According to Sabre, the benefits of such an alliance could be achieved by providing better separation of services, reducing the duplication of capacity, linking networks and destinations, generating market demand through improved customer connectivity and maximising capacity through route sharing and rationalisation. The combined network of the six carriers totals over 5,000 departures each week reaching from North America to the Far East, giving vast potential to the alliance.

Arabesk is being created on a strong analysis base. Sabre Airline Solutions is using its AirFlite suite of advanced network analysis tools, including Schedule Manager, Profit Manager and Fleet Manager in order to optimise the schedules of the six participating carriers.

In addition, Sabre Airline Solutions is using its unique data sources, including its Global Demand Dataset ('GDD') to ensure that the forecasted benefits are achieved. 'Our tools are being used in an innovative manner to create one 'virtual schedule' that combines the networks of the participating carriers. By optimising this schedule, the most profitable network for all of the carriers can be determined. The establishment of the Middle Eastern virtual alliance further expands Sabre Airline Solutions' presence in the region following recent contract announcements with Gulf Air, Egypt Air and Oman Air.

The step comes as a preparation to face an increase in European carrier operations. Middle Eastern airlines are coming under fire for their funding, financing and business practices, and European airlines might soon be offered more flights to the Gulf region as compensation, an industry onlooker said.

Missing from the Arabesk initiative is Emirates airlines, which was expected to order 50 widebody aircraft at the Paris Air Show, which is currently underway at Le Bourget in the north of the French capital, and whose fleet expansion will intensify calls from the industry for Gulf area countries to allow more competition in their regional aviation sector and for the airlines to be privatised, he added.