Air Arabia
Emirati low-cost airline based in Sharjah, UAE
Air Arabia (Arabic: العربية للطيران al-ʿArabiyya Lit-Ṭayarāan) is an Emirati low-cost airline based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The airline operates scheduled services to 200 destinations in the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, and Europe to 22 countries from Sharjah, 28 destinations in nine countries from Casablanca, Fez, Nador, and Tangier, 11 destinations in eight countries from Ras Al Khaimah, and six destinations in four countries from Alexandria. Air Arabia's main base is Sharjah International Airport. There are also operating bases in Ras Al Khaimah and Abu Dhabi as well as in Alexandria and Casablanca.
History
Air Arabia (العربية للطيران) was established on 3 February 2003 by an Amiri decree issued by Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah and member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates, becoming the first low-fare airline in the Middle East.
The airline started operations on 28 October 2003. It broke even during its first year in business, and launched an initial public offering for 55% of its stock early in 2007.
In March 2014, Airbus delivered its 6,000th A320 family aircraft to Air Arabia.
Corporate affairs
Management and ownership
Air Arabia launched in October 2003 and was the second low-cost carrier in the Middle East. The company reported more than AED 19 billion in Q4 2019.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Air Arabia” as emirati low-cost airline based in Sharjah, UAE. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q406798. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2007, 2014 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Air Arabia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.