Air Arabia chief executive Adel Ali has reported that the airline is in talks to finance the delivery of eight Airbus A320 next year.
“We are in the final stage of concluding a deal. At the moment the interest rates in the bank are fantastically good,” he said.
In a statement to local media, Ali declined to state how much the airline was looking to raise and ruled out raising the capital through a sukuk, instead saying that discussions were between a number of local and international banks.
“At the moment, from an airline point of view we find the interest rates are quite attractive and we don’t need to go that way [a sukuk],” he said.
Air Arabia raised around $350 million in a loan from the Qatar National Bank (QNB) to fund this year’s delivery of 10 A320 aircraft.
The 2014 and 2015 aircraft deliveries are part of a 2007 order for 44 Airbus A320s, a single-aisle aircraft.
Ali said the airline is likely to post an order for new aircraft in the first quarter of 2015, however he declined to state whether Air Arabia would stick to operating a fleet of A320s or elect to operate a mixed fleet of B737s.