Libya's Buraq Air Plans to Renew Fleet With A320neos

Libya’s Buraq Air plans to operate a fleet of 10 Airbus A320neo narrowbodies. The operator signed a memorandum of understanding with the airframer at the Dubai Airshow on Wednesday.

The companies did not say when the agreement might result in firm orders. Currently, Buraq Air has a fleet of four leased A320-200 and a pair of Boeing 737s. Earlier this month, it took delivery of a pre-owned Embraer E190 regional airliner that is registered in Portugal.

According to Buraq Air president Fouzi Almiqalh, the fleet modernization is part its strategic partnership with Medsky Airlines, which is also based in Libya. Buraq was founded in 2000 as Lybia’s first private airline and since 2020 has been seeking to recover operations since these were badly disrupted during the country’s civil war.

Today, Buraq’s only scheduled international route is from Tripoli to Tunis. It also operates charter services and some domestic routes such as from the capital to Labraq in the east of the country, and to the southern city of Sabha.

In related business, Benghazi-based carrier Berniq Airways has ordered 12 CFM Leap-1A engines to power six A320neos it is due to receive. This agreement was also signed in Dubai.

As of the end of October, Airbus had logged orders for over 11,300 examples of the A320neo family.