New Egyptian airline, Nile Air, has agreed to buy nine Airbus A321 aircraft. The privately owned regional carrier, which is due to operate in mid 2008, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus to base its future fleet on the A321 aircraft.

The Cairo-based start-up private airline will be Egypt’s second regular carrier after EgyptAir, and plans to serve Riyadh, Jeddah, Medina, Dammam, Kuwait, Dubai, Doha, and Bahrain with passenger, freight, and airmail services. Dr. Nasser A. Al-Tayyar, founder of Nile Air stated “The airline plans to sell 30% of its shares to the public in an initial public offering taking place next year".

Regarding the aircraft that was purchased by the new airline, he stated “operational economics and fleet capacity, volume and range are all critical to successful operations, and the A321 is the perfect solution to provide our required balance between volume, cost-efficiency and return on investment.”