Air Arabia , which celebrates its ninth anniversary of its first flight, announced today that it has taken delivery of two new A320 aircraft from Airbus, bringing the total fleet to 31.

Air Arabia has now taken delivery of 13 out of 44 A320 aircraft ordered back in 2007 and the low-cost pioneer expects another aircraft to be delivered before year -end 2012. The delivery of the 44 new aircraft will be completed by 2016, which will take the carrier’s fleet up to over 50 aircraft.

The carrier took delivery of its latest A320 at the Airbus facility in Toulouse, France, and the new aircraft has gone straight into service across Air Arabia’s global network of 80 destinations, which it serves from three hubs in UAE, Morocco and Egypt.

"The delivery of two new aircraft is a great way to celebrate our anniversary this year," said Adel Ali, Group Chief Executive Office at Air Arabia . "Our modern and reliable aircraft enable us to combine superb value for money fares for our customers. As we continue to unlock opportunities for the low-cost model in the wider Arab region, we look forward to the delivery of more new aircraft in the near future."

After nine years of successful operations, the region’s first low-cost carrier is widely regarded as one of the Middle East’s true corporate success stories. From the earliest days of serving five regional destinations with just two aircraft, Air Arabia has grown to become a leading regional airline with a strong network of destinations. Today, it serves 80 destinations spread across Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia and North Africa.

Since the beginning of this year, Air Arabia introduced ten new routes to its award-winning network, including Kazan and Uffa in Russia; Erbil and Basra in Iraq; Odessa in Ukraine; Salalah in Oman; Taif in Saudi Arabia; Astana in Kazakhstan; and Prishtina in Republic of Kosovo. In addition, the airline also expanded operations from its Moroccan hub and recently introduced non-stop services to London from Casablanca and Tangier in Morocco.

"We witness strong customer demand for our services and we are pleased to see that more and more customers take full advantage of our value-for-money fares. Moving ahead, we look forward to providing our customers with even more value-for-money options, as well as an even wider range of services and destinations."

Air Arabia continues to report sustained profitability and achieve solid growth margins across its network. The airline attributes the success to the strong business model and its robust management team.

As it enters its tenth year of operations, Air Arabia continues to add to its impressive list of industry accolades, including recently being ranked as the world’s second best performing airline in a study by Aviation Week, the leading global aviation magazine. The Top-Performing Airlines (TPA) Study ranked the top 10 performing airlines worldwide. Air Arabia was the only Middle East airline to claim a spot in the study.