Boeing delays are hampering Flydubai expansion, says CEO

April 29, 2025, 3:22 PM

Flydubai operates a fleet of 88 Boeing 737s but wants to expand into longer-haul routes with 787 aircraft

Flydubai awaiting 30 Boeing 787s
Long-haul destinations to be named
CEO believes problems can be resolved

Delays in the delivery of Flydubai’s first wide-body aircraft from Boeing are hampering the carrier’s expansion into long-haul routes and it may seek compensation, its CEO has told AGBI.

The low-cost carrier is waiting for 30 Boeing 787-9 twin-aisle planes, part of an $11 billion deal announced at the 2023 Dubai Airshow.

The first deliveries were due next year but that has been pushed out to at least August 2027 and potentially beyond.

“Unfortunately, we still have a big challenge because, if you ask me when the 787 is going to be delivered, I would say I don’t know,” Ghaith Al Ghaith told AGBI on the sidelines of a travel exhibition in Dubai.

Flydubai, which is owned by the Dubai government and is a sister airline of Emirates, has been expanding its fleet of single-aisle Boeing 737s and its network of destinations – now at 124 – since it was founded in 2008.

Its focus is primarily on connecting Dubai with secondary cities as far away as Salzburg in Austria and Penang in Malaysia.

Competition among Gulf airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad is fierce, leveraging the region’s location to fly non-stop to the US west coast and New Zealand.

Flydubai currently flies 88 Boeing 737s and 59 of that total are the more recent Max models. Another 127 of the 737s are on order and 12 are due for delivery this year.

While the Max has a range of as much as 3,850 nautical miles and carries no more than 204 passengers, the Boeing 787’s range is 7,565 nautical miles and it can carry almost 300 passengers.

“Once we know there is a definitive date we will announce where we will go with these aircraft,” Al Ghaith said.

The 787 order is central to Flydubai’s ambitions to break into the long-haul market, with potential new routes to cities in Africa, Australia and Western Europe.

Beyond the Gulf, that will put Flydubai in competition with carriers such as Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines, which fly a mix of single and twin-aisle aircraft.

Flydubai is among a long list of global carriers affected by delays at Boeing, which has a commercial backlog of 5,600 planes worth an estimated $545 billion, as per the company’s first-quarter results.

The airlines is in discussions with the US planemaker around potential compensation for the delivery delays, Al Ghaith said.

“Boeing is one of our biggest partners,” he said. “We have a beautiful relationship with them and there is never any issue we cannot resolve.”