Libyan Airline Plans Major Expansion

Libyan Arab Airlines has been negotiating with aircraft manufacturers as part of efforts to add 25 new jet planes to its fleet.

The North African carrier said that the jets would carry between 100 and 350 passengers and hoped delivery would be by mid-April 2007.

The extra jets would help the airline expand services to cover most of Africa, many European cities, as well as connections to China, India, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines, Canada and the US.

The airline said that this was necessary to fend off increased competition and that it had a programme in place to increase personnel and technical capacity.

Four cargo planes, with a capacity of about 100 metric tonnes, would also be purchased.