Emirates' new budget carrier to bring relief to expats
By IANS
Wednesday,19 March 2008, 19:20 hrs

Dubai: The new budget airline being launched by Emirates is expected to bring relief to the large number of low and middle-income expatriate workers in the Gulf besides boosting tourism."The entry of Emirates in the budget airline segment will be a great relief for millions of low and middle-income expatriate workers in the region," chairman and managing trustee of the Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust K.V. Shamsudheen told IANS.
"A majority of these workers come from countries that are going to be covered by the new airline," he said.Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had issued instructions to Dubai-based Emirates, the world's ninth largest airline, to launch a new a low-fare airline to cater to the growing passenger traffic to and from the country."Services will be of low-cost out of Sheikh Mohammed's sincere keenness to ease burden of living conditions of passengers and enable them to reunite with their families and relatives at home," Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of the Emirates Group and head of Dubai Civil Aviation, had said in a statement Tuesday.The order would be put into immediate effect, he said. The proposed airline would fly to destinations that could be covered within four-and-a-half hours from Dubai, he added.India falls within this range.There are around 5.5 million expatriate Indians and 1.4 million of them are in the UAE alone. Many of them work as contract labourers in the booming construction industry in the region.Shamsudheen said given the rising cost of living, the airline would come as a boon to workers here."I have seen that Pakistani workers prefer to travel frequently to Pakistan, which is closer to the Gulf than India, rather than bring their families here," he said."Given the rising cost of living here, Indians can now travel more frequently to their home country instead of bringing their families here," he said.Al Rais Travel managing director Mohammad Al Rais told the Khaleej Times that the airline would be popular to expatriates travelling home."We have a lot of expatriates who can travel home only once a year. With a low cost ticket, they can make it home four times a year," he said.Likening the new initiative to "an oasis in the desert", prominent Indian community leader Bharatkumar Shah said that given the rising oil prices, airline fares are expected to increase significantly as also everything else."Given this, this new type of airlines will bring relief to the large number of Indian workers in the region. I hope they start services to my sector (India) as soon as possible," he said