KUWAIT: Kuwait Airways, the national carrier of the State of Kuwait, has revealed that the much anticipated launch of its "Winter Schedule" has seen some immediate and positive changes to the airline's arrival timings, across the airline's 36-destination worldwide network.
According to the airline, the Winter Schedule represents another significant step in Kuwait Airways' five-year transformation strategy that has already seen the recent launch of the dynamic new livery and the impending delivery of the first of 10 Boeing 777-300ERs into its fleet.
Within the first seven days of the new schedule, which started on 30 October, on-time performance (OTP) levels have increased by 9.7 per cent, compared to the previous week and the old schedule. This brings Kuwait Airways in line with international averages, although Kuwait Airways management were keen to stress that exceeding these figures remains the ultimate goal.
Commenting on the immediately improving results, Chairperson and CEO, Rasha Al-Roumi, said: "Through a combined effort of our operations and commercial team, one of the key advantages passengers will note about the introduction of the new schedule is that Kuwait Airways has renegotiated its arrival time-slots at all of our 36 worldwide destinations."
"The improving efficiencies reveal that the Kuwait Airways' team has been able to successfully scale-up operations, in line with the increase in demand and capacity that has also been introduced," Roumi added.
"These are just some of the first positive steps we are noticing from the implementation of the transformation strategy; but, of course, Kuwait Airways remains committed to achieving even greater operational excellence and consistent OTPs across our network, going forward," Roumi concluded.
A clear advantage - for business travellers, in particular - is that the new and improving OTPs offer more convenient travel timings for departure and arrivals. These new timings have been negotiated across Kuwait Airways' entire network of 36 destinations.
Kuwait Airways has also seen increases in frequencies to some of its most popular destinations, including London, UK, now with 10 flights per week, and a daily service to New York - JFK. An additional three flights per week to Istanbul, has also brought the weekly total of flights to the popular Turkish destination up to 10.
An additional 32 flights, per week, have been added to Kuwait Airways' overall network - along existing routes. As a result of the new schedule, an overall average increase in frequency of 15 per cent is expected, over the previous scheduling.
Since Kuwait Airways announced its five-year transformation plan, in September 2016, the airline's introduction of new destinations, new flight timings, new aircraft, and a new livery have all come together to cap a busy few months for Kuwait's national carrier. Clearly, this is statement of intent and of bigger and bolder things to come.