On September 18th, one day before flydubai opens the Dubai – Iasi (Romania) route, we sat down in Bucharest with Jeyhun Efendi – Divisional SVP, Commercial Operations and E-commerce flydubai – to chat about flydubai’s plans regarding on-board connectivity, fleet updates, Boeing deliveries and more.
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Having started operations on June 1st 2009 as a low-cost carrier, flydubai has grown exponentially over the last 15 years, opening new routes – the airline is now flying to over 130 global destinations, more than 80% of which were not served before FZ started operations there – growing its fleet and placing orders for narrowbody, as well as widebody aircraft.
In 2024, flydubai had a record-breaking year, carrying 15.5 million passengers. For 2025, the airline is expecting a 15% growth in passengers numbers. Speaking about the delays in delivery of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, Jeyhun Efendi told us that flydubai would have grown twice as fast if it wasn’t for these delays. However, the 737 MAX deliveries are back on track.
Between May and August 2025, flydubai has taken delivery of 8 Boeing 737 MAX 8s, with 4 more slated to arrive by the end of the year. Currently, FZ’s fleet stands at 94 aircraft, with another 120 jets on the order book for the next decade. The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner delivery to flydubai is scheduled for 2027. As a reminder, in November 2023 FZ placed an order for 30 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, valued at USD 11 billion.
Until then, in order to have a consistent on-board product across its fleet and offer a seamless experience to its passengers, flydubai is continuing the retrofit of the remaining Boeing 737-800s with the cabins launched on 737 MAX, including lie-flat beds in Business Class and IFE connectivity for every seat in Economy. According to Jeyhun, flydubai will finish the retrofit of the remaining 20 Boeing 737NGs (Next Generation) by March 2026.
We’ve also asked the flydubai official why has the airline removed Wi-Fi from its fleet. The answer: “We had some issues with the reliability of the Internet provider, so we decided to remove this service from our narrowbody fleet. In today’s fast paced world, we know how important it is for some of our passengers to stay connected during their flight – whether for business purposes or leisure – so by the end of 2025 we’ll make an announcement about on-board connectivity. Watch this space!”
Our take: most likely, this announcement involves high-speed Internet provided by Starlink and will be made during Dubai Airshow (17-21 November 2025, DWC airport).
We’ve ended our chat with flydubai’s official by speaking about Artificial Intelligence and how is flydubai leveraging AI in order to enhance its operations, on the ground and in the air. “We are already using some AI-backed processes at the airport and when it comes to improving the customer experience, but in 2026 we will do even more on this front.”
Jeyhun added: “We are currently in the final testing stages of a chatbot and we aim to release it by the end of this year. We want to get this right. We don’t want to come up with another chatbot that after a few questions gets stuck and transfers customers to a human representative. Like everything else we do at flydubai, quality comes first and I’m sure that our teams of professionals will deliver an excellent solution.”
