Jazeera Airways

Jazeera Airways is a Kuwaiti low-cost airline with its head office and main base at Kuwait International Airport. It is a listed private company: Wikipedia puts about 26% of the shares with two companies linked to the Boodai Group, with most of the rest publicly held. The airline describes itself as the first non-government-owned airline in the Middle East. It flies from its own Terminal 5 (T5) at Kuwait airport, which it says it designed, built and operates; Wikipedia records the terminal opening in 2018.

History

Jazeera was established in April 2004 under an Emiri decree that opened Kuwait's airline market to private companies, ending its dependence on the state carrier Kuwait Airways, and raised its first capital through a public share offering. It began flying on 30 October 2005 with new Airbus A320s. In 2009 the UAE authorities asked it to end its hub operation in Dubai; the airline concentrated on Kuwait instead, and in 2010 it parked some aircraft and returned them to their lessors. In 2018 it took the first Airbus A320neo delivered to an airline in the Middle East.

Fleet

In its results for the first half of 2026 the airline said it operates 22 Airbus A320ceo and A320neo aircraft, and that a seat retrofit had raised capacity to 180 seats per aircraft. It has 26 aircraft on order, 18 A320neos and 8 A321neos, expected from the end of 2026 onwards. On 18 September 2026 it chose CFM LEAP-1A engines for nine of those A320neos and extended its CFM services agreement to cover 29 current and future A320neo-family aircraft. The cabin has economy and Jazeera Business seating, and Wikipedia notes the airline does not serve alcohol.

2026: closure and recovery

Jazeera's first half of 2026 was dominated by disruption at home. Its results release says Kuwait International Airport was temporarily closed from 28 February 2026; from 11 March the airline ran "Mission Barakah" from Saudi Arabia, using 14 aircraft, temporary hubs at Qaisumah, Dammam, Jeddah and Madinah and in Cairo, and cross-border buses, for more than 1,500 flights and over 200,000 passengers. Full operations from T5 resumed on 3 May. Passenger numbers for the half-year fell 32.3% to 1.5 million, while the load factor rose to 79.1%.

• H1 2026: new services to Milan Bergamo and Aleppo.
• September 2026: first winter flights to Prague announced with CzechTourism, and a distribution partnership with Trip.com.
• 30 September 2026: the airline said that, at the request of Kuwait's civil aviation authority, the resumption of transfer and transit passenger services through T5 had been postponed until further notice.
• 5 October 2026: it announced the relaunch of direct flights to Yerevan.

Network

Jazeera flies from Kuwait to the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Africa and Europe. Its website says it serves more than 60 destinations; the half-year results release gives more than 70.