Flydubai carries over 130,000 football fans to Qatar

The Dubai-based Budget carrier flydubai on Thursday said it carried more than 130,000 football fans between Dubai and Doha during the FIFA World Cup.

The carrier operated 1,300 flights between Dubai World Central (DWC) and Doha International Airport (DIA) between November 21 and December 19.

Passengers from as many as 171 countries travelled to Doha on the Match Day Shuttle flights operated by flydubai. The top 10 nationalities in terms of the number of passengers were the UK, India, UAE, France, Argentina, US, Morocco, Jordan, Canada and Brazil, who made up to 60 per cent of the overall number of passengers travelling on these shuttle flights.

Fydubai operated up to 30 daily flights specifically for Fifa World Cup fans, with a shuttle flight departing every 30 minutes during peak travel periods of the day. These flights were operated by seven of the carrier’s Boeing 737 aircraft which were temporarily deployed at DWC for the duration of the tournament.

Overall, around half of the passengers were residents, and the remaining 50 per cent were foreign travellers who flew down to watch World Cup.

In a media briefing on Thursday, Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO, flydubai, said, on average, there was a delay of just two minutes at Dubai and Doha airports during the shuttle flights.

He further revealed that several people travelled more than once, and some of them even four times.