Air Arabia in a nutshell
Air Arabia is the Arab world's first and largest low-cost airline with more than 170 destinations across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Europe.
Although it is a low-cost airline, it also offers guaranteed connections as standard.
It is based at Sharjah SHJ Airport in the Emirates.
Air Arabia operates a unified fleet consisting exclusively of Airbus A320 aircraft in the typical grey and red livery. Outside of Sharjah on the outskirts of Dubai, it operates several subsidiary branches at these airports:
- Air Arabia Maroc (3O/MAC) with bases in Casablanca, Agadir, Fez and Tangier,
- Air Arabia Egypt (E5/RBG) based in Alexandria.
All airlines operate as the parent Air Arabia and use a single website.
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3 comments
They're having a super event today.
Hi, what is your experience with the one hour layover in Sharjah? Did you make it, did you have a good time? How did the Arab low cost carrier handle it?
Hi, a few years ago I had 40 minutes to transfer. Strangely enough, the first flight (Colombo - Sharjah) was about 30 minutes late, so I didn't even hope I could make the flight to Prague. However, much to my surprise, the plane was waiting for us (about 10 people). But whether this is a standard situation, I have no idea.
And not to forget - they even managed to switch luggage during the rush, which surprised me the most :-)
I've had my first flight with Air Arabia, so I have some information that might help someone (I didn't find much myself before the flight). We flew to the Maldives for about 8.000 CZK per person, so I was very worried :-) I've only travelled with reputable airlines so far, so I was curious to see how bad it would be :-) Online check-in 48 hours before is totally fine (but not necessary, you can check in at the airport), I even managed to book 5th-7th row for free every time for all directions. Tickets directly generated, but at the airport they printed again anyway. The plane was clean, the crew pleasant, definitely more legroom than Smart Wings. With the flight being nicely split over the UAE, it was easy to manage 6 hours straight. Hand luggage outweighed our carry-on weight on one leg at the gate. Catering on board was plentiful and really good value for money. We also tried the hot food and it was surprisingly quite good. Cannot buy alcohol on board. Crew pleasant, on one flight someone kept ringing them and they still handled it with honour and a smile (I don't understand :-D ) Food and drink can be ordered online and in advance but they had a slight mix up so I didn't do it on the way back. The transfer was quick, you can make an hour transfer just fine, the airport is quite small and when we got off the plane they were waiting for us and chasing us to the right gate towards Malé. The airport for me is pretty awful and outdated, Dubai it is not :-)) But toilets are clean, water machines (for 1 DHR), snacks are also there (although very crowded). So in sum.....don't expect a miracle, but within reason, Asia at such prices within price vs performance, fine for me and I'll happily repeat sometime.
*if you have a baggage claim, deal with the airport right away, because they won't deal with you without a report