Jazeera Airways revamps flights

Dubai: Jazeera Airways, the Kuwaiti public company, said Wednesday that it has restructured its network as a result of current market conditions and seasonality, which will affect some routes.

On December 13, services from Kuwait to Hurghada in Egypt were suspended until June 2, 2010. This will now operate as a seasonal summer route. However, some weekend flights to Hurghada will be operational in early 2010 during the holiday periods. Flights to Sana'a will now operate via Bahrain as of January 3.

Furthermore, the airline said that services between Kuwait and Tehran and between Dubai and Bahrain will ceasee on January 3. The last service from Kuwait to Mumbai will operate on January 3 and the last return flight will be on January 4.

Additionally, the route from Kuwait to Latakia, originally scheduled to be launched on December 15, has been postponed.

"We are continually reviewing our services to ensure ongoing profitability in a tough trading environment. Making the changes to our network gives us the opportunity to operate more frequencies to other destinations or to launch new routes where there is a greater demand," Stefan Pichler, chief executive of Jazeera Airways, said.

Three months ago the airline said that it would be expanding its destinations and increasing frequencies of existing services, such as that to Dubai. While the market was down across the board, the airline said that its load factor remained in the high 60s.

Falling business travel, however, has led the publicly listed airline to cut back on certain destinations.