Mar 2025: Build a new airline based in Baghdad

A low cost carrier offering value for money air travel to short haul destinations. I believe that there is not enough (supply) of this at present, even though a few airlines are already serving demand.

Select destinations

Domestic market is short stage length (1hr or less) for ducted fan turbine powered commercial aircraft. But demand is likely to be good, given the 4-5hr travel times on surface based transport. As Baghdad is the center of gravity for the country, it makes sense to have a hub and spoke network, for both domestic and international traffic with BGW as the hub.

Domestic destinations from BGW:

Mosul

Basra

Erbil

Kirkuk

International destinations from BGW:

Dubai

Medina

Cairo

Istanbul

Choose aircraft 

Boeing 737-800 or A320ceo will be suitable. 4 units inducted in 2 pairs over the first year of operations would be a good size to achieve stability in operations and consistency in schedule adherence before looking for significant expansion.

Schedule flights

Build network

​​Network philosophy:

All aircraft shall be based at hub (BGW).

All aircraft shall fly to domestic spokes in the early morning (5am-7am) and return by mid morning (around 10am). For the next 1/3rd of the day, all aircraft shall depart to international destinations and return by evening (4pm-5pm). Thereafter, all aircraft shall once more fly to domestic spokes and return to base by 9pm.

These banks/waves of flights from BGW will offer the maximum number of travel options to customers of the airline at each destination in the network. It will serve many city pairs, and also offer same day/next day return products.

This will need efficient transfer operations at BGW to move passengers, baggage and cargo to connecting flights within the 1.5-2hr connecting window. Consistently achieving these seamless transfers may be challenging if infrastructure, people and processes are not established and well managed. When considering the immigration and emigration related steps in international connections, 2hrs may not be sufficient.

Aircraft utilization would be reasonable for such a schedule.

Except for Mosul, all other envisaged destinations have operational airports that can handle 737/A320.

Mosul Airport is expected to become operation in H2CY2025. Hence it is included in the network in the second half of 2025.

The first two aircraft shall serve Basra, Erbil all days of the week; Dubai and Medina on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays; Cairo and Istanbul on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Upon the induction of the next two aircraft, the aforementioned international destinations shall be served on all days of the week.

Get operational and commercial metrics

KPIs of developed network & schedule from Airlineplan.com

Connections at hub, calculated by Airlineplan.com