SAFI Airways : 4Q : SFW

Safi Airways is looking beyond the complicated domestic operating environment and hopes to enhance its international profile with the addition of a 285-seat A340-300 it plans to use on its thrice-weekly Kabul-Frankfurt service. The aircraft, formerly with Air Comet and Virgin Atlantic Airways, will provide a 30% capacity increase on a route Safi used to operate with a 767-200ER. CCO Claus Fischer told ATWOnline that loads on the route, launched in June, have improved ahead of what he expects to be a challenging winter season. Interline agreements with Emirates and Lufthansa will go into effect this month, offering easier onward connections. Safi's twice-daily Kabul-Dubai service enjoys load factors close to 100% and a third daily flight is expected to be added soon. Delhi will join the network in February, followed by Beijing in March or April and an unidentified destination in Saudi Arabia soon thereafter. Fischer told this website that Safi already has secured traffic rights to both China and Saudi Arabia. Frankfurt service will increase to four- or five-times-weekly in the summer.
The airline halted domestic service in June. Safety remains an issue in the troubled country and competitors like Pamir Airways and Kam Air offer fares that make profitable domestic flying impossible. "We cannot compete with a €45 fare for a single domestic flight. Our idea was to offer highly operational and safe services on domestic routes. But this is not possible with such low fares," Fischer told this website.
Safi now operates the A340, 767 and two 737-300s. It plans to make a decision about the future of its 737s and their potential replacement in the spring. "This depends on the leasing companies. Sometimes a lessor triples the rates for an Afghanistan-registered carrier," Fischer said, highlighting the difficulties facing airlines in the country. "For example, the infrastructure at Kabul [International] Airport has to be improved urgently. Fuel is twice as expensive as in Dubai and we have to deal with a curfew between 21:00 and 06:00." On the bright side, Safi expects its passenger traffic in 2010 to nearly double to 750,000 from the 400,000 it will carry this year.

Safi Airways of Afghanistan is depending on increasing its international presence and is working on a
number of initiatives, both inside the company and at Kabul International, in an effort to solidify its position.

Safi no longer operates domestically and now serves Frankfurt, Kuwait City, Doha and Dubai from the Afghan capital.

CCO Claus Fischer recently told ATWOnline that the carrier hopes to implement a codeshare with Qatar Airways on the KBL-DOH route soon and intends to receive its IOSA certification this year.

"Then we will be a member of the top class of airlines, and we can concentrate once again on the most important
thing, operating aircraft," he said.

Running an airline to modern standards in Afghanistan is extremely complicated, Fischer explained [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].
The next step is ending the chaos at its home airport, which he said is preventing Safi from taking advantage of the lack of competition on international routes.
Operating hours at KBL currently are 6 a.m.-9 p.m., and he said the carrier is "working hard" with Afghan authorities to extend them by an hour on either side.

But that is only one of several changes required.
Charter carriers clog the taxiways and parking areas at the airport, Fischer said, and the lack of defined takeoff and landing slots contributes to an operation so inefficient that there often are only six aircraft movements per hr.

Safi is planning for growth anyway and is searching for two A320s and an A340 on the secondary market as it looks to replace two 737-300s formerly operated by Air China.

It already flies one A340-300 and one 767-200.

On Sunday it will increase its thrice-weekly FRA service to five-times-weekly and plans to launch two/three-times-weekly Delhi flights in May. Service to Beijing and Moscow should follow.

"We know we will not be able to offer a perfect product within the next six months. But we are operating safely, on time and with good onboard service," Fischer said, adding that 8-10 aircraft is the upper limit for the airline's fleet.

by Kurt Hofmann