Ras Al Khaimah International Airport has enjoyed a highly successful 2016, according to its chairman Engineer Sheikh Salem bin Sultan Al Qasimi.  

Sheikh Salem said the year will be the airport’s most positive year so far with a host of landmarks passed and records broken.

The airport's passenger numbers grew 68 per cent over 2015 figures on a like-for-like basis. Cargo tonnage almost doubled with an impressive 98 per cent growth, while aircraft movements increased by 37 per cent.

Sheikh Salem said: “A lot of hard work has been put in over recent years and we have now started to reap some of the rewards.  In February, Qatar Airways inaugurated its flights from Doha to Ras Al Khaimah, connecting RAK to long haul routes in Europe, China and beyond.  In April, Air India Express gave us an Indian connection that goes some way to satisfying the still under-served Indian sector from RAK.”

“In May Sun MRO started its setup at RAK to establish a narrow body repair and maintenance centre,” he said. “In September we had the inauguration of Egypt Air Cargo flights, the first flag carrier freighter operating to RAK.  The beginning of October saw an early start of winter tourism season with 10 charters coming from various parts of Europe, CIS and Russia.”  

The latter was a result of joint efforts by RAK Airport and RAK Tourism Development Authority, he said.
Mohammed Qazi, the airport’s CEO, also noted that in addition to these key moments Ras Al Khaimah’s national carrier, Air Arabia, increased its daily frequencies on most of the routes it operates from RAK. He attributed the high load factors at the airport to its easy accessibility from the Northern Emirates, which is a sizeable catchment area.  

RAK Airport also opened the expansion of the Arrival Terminal, on time, during October. This expansion included the state-of-the-art smart immigration gates that process each passenger in approximately 5 seconds.

Qazi noted: “The key focus is on the timeliness of our operations, as we believe the quicker you can process the passengers the more satisfied both the passengers and airlines are.  Besides, less ground time simply means more revenues for the airlines, and we are ranked top amongst the airports for on-time performance for airlines operating at RAK Airport.”

Qazi said this is only the beginning of what’s to come in the next five years. Aviation is growing at a rate of 5 per cent globally and regional trends are above global average.  “We are continuing to invest in infrastructure in order to cater for the future.  We hope that the global economy shows improvements next year as there have been a number of uncertainties during 2016,” he said.

He said the airport increased its manpower by 16 per cent this year.

Specifically for 2017, Qazi sees RAK Airport continuing to build on what has been established during 2016.  “We are constantly enhancing our service offerings for our passengers and airlines alike,” he said. “We have technological innovations planned for the first quarter that will ease the check-in process and may even take it outside the airport itself.  And we will be opening our new seasonal terminal in the early part of 2017 as well.” -TradeArabia News Service