Kuwait Airways to go private within 10 months

KUWAIT CITY: State-owned Kuwait Airways Corp (KAC) is expected to be privatised within 10 months, its chairman Hamad al-Falah said on Thursday.

Falah said in remarks cited by the official KUNA news agency that KAC has finalised a set of rules on the basis of which a number of foreign consultancy firms will evaluate its assets before privatisation.

He expected the rules to be approved by the government in August. The Kuwaiti parliament voted in January to turn the carrier which has incurred more than two billion dollars in losses over the past 17 years into a private company within two years.

A 35-percent stake in the new company will be sold at auction to foreign and local investors and 40 percent will be sold to Kuwaiti citizens in an initial public offering, the law states.

Twenty percent will be reserved for state-run institutions and the remaining five percent will be distributed for free to airline employees.

The airline has a fleet of 15 Airbus and two Boeing aircraft. Falah said KAC has leased an Airbus A-320 aircraft and is searching for another.