Dubai:Safi Airways, an international airline of Afghanistan, says it will acquire two Airbus A320s this summer.

The first, scheduled to arrive this month, will be used on the Dubai-Kabul route.

"The airline has now had several months making a small operational profit and March onwards looks even more promising," said Safi Airways chairman Rahim Safi.

"Looking forward we see the need to put newer aircraft into service so we will introduce the A320s to our fleet as of late June."

The airline said it was in the process of dry-leasing one A320 and planning to acquire the second later in the year.

Financing would come from shareholders, and upcoming deals which could not be disclosed, Safi said.

The acquisitions come as part of the airline's fleet and brand-renewal plans.

Safi Airways executive vice chairman Werner Borchert said: "We are planning a comprehensive overhaul programme for the existing 737s."

"Once completed, the aircraft will continue to operate for Safi or charter and ACMI sales to cover peak periods," he said.

"These aircraft will be part of the Safi fleet for the foreseeable future."

Fleet

Safi airlines planned to have six A320s by the end of this year and 11 by 2014.

The airline currently operates five weekly, non-stop Kabul-to-Frankfurt flights with the Airbus A340, two daily between Kabul and Dubai, three weekly to Doha, and one weekly to Kuwait, and is looking to expand its routes to Delhi, Beijing, Moscow and Istanbul.

Safi Airlines chief development officer Tom de Geytere said next year the airline would focus on increasing its frequency of flights.

"We're looking to add more flights to our Frankfurt destination as it is a fantastic connecting house," he said.

"Most people who buy our tickets are from Germany, the US and Central Europe," he said.

Safi Airways chief commercial officer Claus Fischer said demand was growing.

Expats flying home

"There is a constant traffic of workers flying home to Afghanistan once or twice a year, hundreds of thousands of expats flying home once every eight weeks and NGO workers flying into Afghanistan on a regular basis," he said.

With airlines such as Pam Air and Arian Air offering direct budget flights to Afghanistan and flydubai launching its new route to Kabul this month, Fischer said he didn't believe Safi would suffer from the competition.

"We're the more expensive airline," Fischer said.

"When we talked about restructuring Safi Airways, we wanted to focus on quality and safety, which comes at a price.

"We don't want to be the price leader in the market."