Kazi Shafiqur Rahman is already a successful businessman. But the 32-year-old from east London wants more – his aim is to be ‘the halal Richard Branson’.
At Oxford Airport, a 19-seat Jetstream 31 airliner sits ready for take-off. It bears the livery of Firnas Airways, and, despite a range of only 735 miles, forms part of a grand plan to revolutionise long-haul economy air travel. The plane costs £8,500 a month to lease, but so far it has gone nowhere apart from a few circuits above Oxfordshire.
This is but a detail for the founder of Firnas, Kazi Shafiqur Rahman, whose ambition it is to be a new Richard Branson, an aeronautical trailblazer taking air travel to under-served cities in the growing economies of the Indian subcontinent and…
