Budget Middle Eastern Airline

The Arabian Gulf states are not ones that you would normally associate with budget travel, but the United Arab Emirates is home base for Air Arabia (www.airarabia.com,) which boasts of being the first budget airline in the region.

Air Arabia has hubs in Sharjah, UAE, in Alexandria, Egypt and Casablanca, Morocco and serves not just the Middle East and North Africa but India, several cities in Russia and Central Asia, and several in Western Europe.

I wish I could provide some sample air fares offered by Air Arabia, but I could not get their Website to work well enough to find any. I am not sure what the problem is--perhaps you have to sign in to have access to fare information. If so, that doesn't seem to be a very user-friendly approach to market development.

If you travel in this region or wish to do so, this airline may offer cheaper fares than the legacy carriers. The Middle East is an area well worth exploring, but unfortunately political problems make much of it a difficult region for Westerners at the moment, and cultural differences make it particularly hard for Western women.