Nearly four months after the European Commission decided to ban all Afghanistan-registered aircraft, Safi Airways remains steadfast in finding means that will allow it to fly into the European airspace once again, says a top executive.
Michael McTighe, chief operating officer of Safi Airways, admitted that the commission’s decision in November had significantly affected the airline’s operations, resulting in the suspension on January 10 of their direct service between Kabul and Frankfurt – a route that had gained considerable following among the roughly 100,000 Afghans residing in Germany.
“[The ban] left us with a big problem because we had a lot of passengers booked for the Christmas [holidays]. We also had to negotiate our way out of a lease on an Airbus A340 aircraft that we assigned for the Frankfurt route,” says McTighe.
He added that
EU's decision was particularly upsetting as they believe Safi, whose aircraft are maintained by German aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) firm
Lufthansa Technik, has been complying with international aviation safety and security standards.
Despite the latest snag to hit Safi’s five-year existence, McTighe said the airline, which is being promoted as the “International Airline of Afghanistan”, is not ready to back down.
“There are two major things that we’re doing at the moment [to get around the ban]. One is we’ve started the process to get a Gulf AOC (
airline operator’s certificate) that will give us the ability to operate [our aircraft to Europe]. Also behind the scene, the Afghan government is putting pressure back on the Europeans to [reconsider their decision],” McTighe told Alrroya.com.
He added that another factor that would hopefully help them in their quest to get the European Union’s “go-ahead” is an audit tentatively scheduled this month by an EU-recognised auditing firm.
“There’s a small chance that if we can demonstrate to the Europeans that we have passed a European audit, we can operate this summer on the Frankfurt-Kabul route,” he said.
Circumventing the ban has become a priority for the airline as competition among local and regional carriers intensify. Aside from
Safi Airways, Ariana Afghan Airlines and Kam Air currently operate scheduled commercial flights in and out of Afghanistan.
Ariana, which has a Turkish-registered aircraft, has managed to evade the EU ban and operate their Kabul-Frankfurt service, thus capturing Safi’s market share of that route.
Asked if he sees light at the end of the tunnel for Safi Airways amidst the existing European ban, McTighe says “Yes”.
“I think because of the EU ban and with a new management team coming in, we’ve looked at the business with fresh eyes. What we’re trying to do is to simplify the business a little bit, 2011 is going to be a year of consolidation. As we then enter 2012, we want to go back to Europe. We want to be able to fly direct from Kabul into Europe, hopefully Frankfurt, but possibly London as well,” he said.
Market outlook positive, new routes to open
Safi Airways currently flies twice a day, seven days a week between the Afghan capital of Kabul and Dubai, using an Airbus A320-200 aircraft offering both Business and Economy class seats. The airline also operates a Boeing 767-200 aeroplane, which they use as a back-up aircraft for the Dubai route, and in the recent past months has also been chartered to fly passengers out of troubled Middle East and North Africa zones such as Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.
McTighe said Safi will build its young fleet around the Airbus A320 model, with the second jet expected to be delivered within the next few months. Towards the end of 2012, Safi’s fleet is expected to grow into five aircraft, indicating the airline’s bullish outlook for the Afghan aviation market.
The executive also mentioned that they plan to expand their international route network in the coming months. While refusing to give further details pending an official announcement sometime this month, McTighe hinted at the Afghan carrier opening a second and third route within the Middle East region.
Passenger traffic healthy with cargo demand also rising
McTighe said Safi Airways’ passenger load factor and freight traffic have been witnessing steady increase.
“At the moment we’re running [a passenger load factor] of almost 90 per cent and we have seen an increase because people are looking for safe and reliable air transport. We work really hard to go on time as we understand how important punctuality is, but we’ll never compromise safety,” he said.
While operators of Safi Airways have no immediate plans of offering a dedicated cargo service, McTighe said freight continues to be an important part of their operations.
“We’ve seen our cargo volumes double in the recent past weeks. Cargo is going to be very important for us because Afghanistan is a landlocked country. Goods have to either be brought in or taken out. Certainly we’ll be looking at ways to make as much revenue as we can with cargoes supplementing passengers, but our priority is passengers, and cargo second,” he said.
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