Desert Airways Press Releases

Game Worlds Croydon
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27th May 2017

 

Welcome to Desert Airways, your gateway to Africa. Commencing operations on the 16th of April this year, Desert Airways has seen a rapid growth from 7 aircraft at the end of April, to 28 today. The airline has become one of the largest in North Africa, connecting the cities of Morocco to several countries, such as France, Spain, the UK and many more. 

 

This week Desert Airways took delivieries of multiple aircraft, most notably a Boeing 737-700 (CN-AGL), which will serve London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt International, in cooperation with our partners European Connect Airways and Belgium Airlines. Other deliveries include an ATR 72-600 (CN-AGK) and a Bombardier CRJ 900 (CN-AGJ).

 

This newsthread will be updated fortnightly with news of events within the company.

 

Billy - CEO of Desert Airways

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18th June 2017

 

Okay, so it has been a bit longer than a fortnight but oh well. Several things have happened since the last blog post, some of the major and some minor. First of all we have added seven new aircraft to the fleet, including 2 new ATR 72's (one -500 and the other -600), three CRJ 700's (1 of which is an ER variant) and 2 CRJ 900's. These planes will serve several new destinations, most notably Tripoli, Ibiza, Tenerife South and London Gatwick. The CRJ 700 is proving to be a favorite for both the passengers and the Desert Airways staff. The type has a good range and a seat capacity of 70 passengers, allowing us to serve smaller airports within France and Spain. 

Secondly, we have started a new subsidiary to serve the smaller airports within the Maghreb region from Marrakesh and Casablanca. The regional carrier is called Desert Connect and after two difficult weeks, this coming week looks like the airline will turn a profit.

Thirdly, we are is negotiations to join an undisclosed alliance which should be finalized in the coming days. This will provide extra connectivity for passengers travelling to and from Morocco, allowing more passengers from Europe to reach both North and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Plans for a new terminal for the Desert Group at Casablanca are being formed and construction should begin shortly. At first, the terminal will be able to provide for passengers travelling to and from France but this will later be expanded so that the entire Desert Group can use it (as well as members of the undisclosed alliance!).

Desert Airways is also planning to buy out some of its leased planes, but this will be costly and take several months. However, the economics in the long run will be beneficial and so this looks like a good move.

Billy - CEO of Desert Airways

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9th August 2017

After almost two months, I am finally doing an update to the Desert Airways blog! So much has happened in the last few months some of it good and some of it bad.

Any of you that play on Croydon have probably felt the gigantic crash of AGEX and it has been a tough time for everyone. Because of this expansion of more routes was suspended until the last couple of days when AGEX seems to have finally picked up. Nonetheless, we picked up a couple of aircraft including 1 737-700, a few ATR 42-500’s and a couple of CRJ’s. Overall we have 45 planes in total, 3 of which we have bought out. The 737 we bought was then leased out to our partner Fly Jeddah.

Speaking of partners, we were accepted into Sky Alliance and have enjoyed the co-operation of the members. We have agreed several interlining deals with some of the members, notably flyBlue, the European Connect group and French Caribbean Link.

Terminal 5 in Casablanca is being rated the best terminal in North Africa by critics (who definitely weren’t payed by us!), Several flights are being operated out of there, mainly flights to the UK, Germany, Benelux and France.

Desert Connect has been growing…slowly. But it does serve a purpose of providing feeder traffic into Marrakech from smaller airports in Morroco that are too small to be served by an ATR at the moment.

We started another subsidiary, Desert Georgia, that lasted about 4 days. The demand wasn’t really there, however, it would probably of worked with a larger budget, as I would have worked off the Europe - Asia market.

Lastly, once the bank allows it, we are probably going to switch our 737’s for CS 100/300 as they will suit better to are needs as a small but highly economical narrowbody.

                       Billy - CEO of Desert Airways
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20th August 2017 - Terminal 5, Casablanca Mohammed V Airport

This press conference will be a short presentation for the general public to discover more about Moroccan national carrier, Desert Airways. Inspired by Tianjin Sky: http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/11482-tianjin-sky/#entry102302

Welcome everyone, to the monthly presentation of Desert Airways, the national carrier of Morocco. We will answer frequently asked questions by fans, travelers and potential investors in order to give you a clearer picture of the Desert Group.

Q: How has the fleet expanded since the last press conference and if so what routes will these new planes be serving?

The fleet has grown quite considerably since the last update; 1 ATR 72-600, 1 CRJ 700LR, 1 CRJ 200ER and 2 LET 410UVP’s (leased out to Desert Connect). The ATR will continue adding services to the ever-popular cities of Marrakesh and Agadir meaning we have 182 and 98 deps/week respectively between these cities and our main hub in Casablanca. The 700LR will add new destinations including Perpignan and Clermont-Ferrand as well as adding frequency to Lisbon, Malaga and Bilbao after hundreds of requests from passengers who were fed up of the fully-booked flights. However, the 200ER is where the excitement and speculation should be aimed. A new chapter is dawning for connectivity throughout the Sahel and West African regions. This plane will boost services to Nouakchott, as well as adding the under-served cities of Nouhidabou and Conakry, which only have a few flights serving them ever day (only to Dakar and Abidjan). Passengers will be able to connect seamlessly to our flights to France, where no doubt a lot of them will be heading.

CRJ 200ER in Desert Airways livery:

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Q: Desert Airways services have been deemed inferior to the likes of French Caribbean Link and X1 International in the past. What are your plans for improving on the quality of the services the airline provides?

Today, we are proud to announce our new business class, as well as our new frequent flyer program.

Atlas Club (business class) will provide exquisite service throughout our network, with all flights containing complimentary food and drink (longer flights serving alcohol), free access to our world-class lounge at Casablanca, reclining ‘ultra-comfort’ seats and our brand new in-flight entertainment system: CloudView.

CloudView will offer hundreds of movies and TV shows including the latest blockbusters and dozens of games to keep the kids entertained. A wide variety of Arabic films are also on offer, all containing subtitles (mainly English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian and German but more are on offer for other countries). There is also a broad range of music to listen to, from Moroccan folk music, to Taylor Swift’s latest album.

For domestic and short haul flights, Atlas Club passengers will be served a range of soft drinks, a range of snacks provided by Desert Deli, a renowned refreshments company owned by the Desert Group. For the main meal a choice of either a tangy couscous salad or a butternut & harissa hummus with fresh Moroccan vegetables will be served.

Our delicious couscous salad, is served to Atlas Club on all our flights:

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For longer flights, Atlas Club members will be able to have a good nights sleep with our Lie-Flat 140 seats. Alcohol is complimentary on longer services for Atlas Club as well as fresh-cooked meals, designed by the Moroccan culinary mastermind: Moha Fedal. A comforting cauliflower & spiced almond soup is served to sate the appetite, followed by a choice of either Tabbouleh with fish or a pumpkin, cranberry & red onion tagine.

Atlas Club members will be able to use the brand new Desert Lounge, located within Terminal 5 in Casablanca Mohammed V Airport. The lounge includes: private check-in desks, a spa with natural ingredients from the north, comfortable seating, a buffet featuring traditional Moroccan dishes, private baggage screening and a chauffeur service straight from the lounge to the plane doors.

We are also proud to present our frequent flyer program. Customers with an Atlas Card can now earn Desert Points (DP) which can be used both in-flight and airport side to buy a wide variety of goods. A tier based system is still work-in-progress but below you will find how many points each class earns:

Economy Class: 15% of kilometers flown (e.g. CMN-ORY is 1869 km, so economy travelers will earn 280 DP)

Atlas Club: 35% of kilometers flown (e.g. CMN-ORY is 1869 km, so Atlas Club travelers will earn 654 DP)

Here is a rough list of how much certain items will cost:

Coca-Cola 330ml: 60 DP

Maghreb Snack Box: 180 DP

Gucci Bamboo 50ml: 1950 DP

Economy ticket from Casablanca to Paris Orly: 6920 DP

Atlas Club ticket from Casablanca to Paris Orly: 21680 DP

Atlas Card (excuse the quality it was briefly made in MS Paint):

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That concludes today’s press conference,

Billy - CEO of Desert Airways