May 26 -Budget airline Flydubai will celebrate its first anniversary next week after having sold almost one million tickets and a fleet of eight new aircraft. The airline flies to 16 destinations at the moment. According to experts, the airline’s rapid growth has been faster than any other budget airline in its first year.
Flydubai will add four destinations next month which include Istanbul in Turkey; Latakia in Syria; Lucknow in India; and Karachi in Pakistan.

“Expansion has been stellar really,” said Alistair Rivers, the regional sales director at Innovata that publishes flight schedules for the travel industry. “The June figures for Flydubai mean that they are already at over 75 per cent of Air Arabia’s weekly seats, after only being in business a year.”

Meanwhile, Ghaith al Ghaith, the chief executive of the airline, said that the carrier will continue to grow. “We are delighted to take Dubai’s low-cost carrier as a theory into the reality of Flydubai being one of the fastest-growing start-up airlines ever,” he added. “We’ve had a great start and there is a lot more to come, with another five aircraft, lots more destinations and in-flight entertainment due by the end of 2010.”