Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority has signed agreements with leading tour operators in Germany and Poland to welcome the first of many chartered flights from the European countries to the emirate.

The charter agreements will bring a total of eight additional flights into Ras Al Khaimah each week, seven from Germany and one from Poland. The joint initiative highlights the increasing demand for more flights to the emirate from potential visitors from both countries.

The agreement with Kurban Tours (Grayline UAE) will see one charter flight per week from Katowice, Poland to Ras Al Khaimah run for an initial period of six months while the partnership with the FTI Group and local ground agent Meeting Point Emirates will bring seven flights a week into Ras Al Khaimah from Germany.

Haitham Mattar, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, said: “Ras Al Khaimah attracts visitors from a broad range of source markets around the world and we are increasingly investing our efforts in markets that offer high growth potential. Two of our focus countries are Poland and Germany and the new charter arrangements not only highlights our commitment to these markets but also highlights the increasing demand from travellers in both countries to visit our emirate.”

“Germany is the second largest source market for the emirate and a market that we continue to focus on. Visitors from Germany represented 8.9 per cent of the total visitors to Ras Al Khaimah in Q3 2015 and as we work towards increasing the total number of visitors to the emirate year on year, partnerships such as this are crucial and we look forward to a long alliance with FTI and Meeting Point Emirates.”

The new flights from Germany started on October 31 from seven cities - Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hanover, Dresden and Leipzig. Operated by Sun Express, the direct flights which will be on a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, have a capacity of 189 seats with a flight time of 6.5 hours. The five-hour direct flights from Poland, which will run once a week, will be on a B737-80 offering a capacity of 189 seats. – TradeArabia News Service