The Business of Staying Connected: Airalo’s Bet on the Middle East Traveller

“Thank you for the tomatoes, thank you for the potatoes, but can you arrange local SIM cards?”

That’s what crew members kept asking Airalo’s founder, Ahmet Bahadir Özdemir, while he was still running a global shipping supply business, long before eSIMs existed as we know them today. It’s a small, almost throwaway line, but it pointed at something much bigger: wherever people travel, staying connected matters more than almost anything else on the trip, and getting there was still a hassle. When Apple’s first eSIM-compatible iPhones came out in 2018, that offhand request turned into a business plan. Airalo launched in 2019 as the world’s first eSIM platform, and it now covers over 200 destinations with more than 30 million users worldwide.

Gulf Insider caught up with Tony Kaldas, Senior Partnerships Director for Arabia and Africa at Airalo on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market, to find out how that early idea turned into a business built around one of travel’s most overlooked frustrations. He walks us through the logic behind Airalo’s package types, from single-country plans to unlimited data, the airline and travel agency deals behind Airalo Partners, and where he sees connectivity in the Middle East heading next.

For readers unfamiliar with eSIM technology, can you explain simply what it is and how it changes the way travellers stay connected abroad?

An eSIM is exactly what it says on the package: a digital version of the SIM card. Instead of buying a physical SIM at the airport, removing your usual SIM, or relying on expensive international roaming, you can simply purchase and download it ahead of your trip. With Airalo, travellers are able to choose the package that best suits their trip, install before departure and connect as soon as they land.

Ultimately, eSIM technology gives travellers more control. They can arrange connectivity before their journey, understand the cost upfront, avoid expensive roaming bills, and avoid spending the first part of a trip searching for a SIM card or unsecured public Wi-Fi. Airalo currently covers over 200 destinations and has over 30 million users worldwide.

What made Airalo decide to build a business around this technology?

Before founding Airalo, our founder and CEO, Ahmet Bahadir Özdemir, ran a global shipping supply business. Crew regularly asked: “Thank you for the tomatoes, thank you for the potatoes, but can you arrange local SIM cards?”

That request revealed something universal: wherever people travel, staying connected is essential, yet doing so across borders was often inconvenient and expensive. When Apple announced its first eSIM-compatible phones in 2018, we saw an opportunity to solve that problem digitally and at scale.

Airalo launched in 2019 as the world’s first eSIM platform, giving people instant access to connectivity. Our purpose remains the same today: to make complicated technology simple, so travellers can focus on the people, places, and moments that matter.

How should a traveller choose between local, regional, and global packages, and where do unlimited packages fit in?

Our packages are designed to give users flexibility and choice around how they connect. Local packages are designed for a single destination and are usually the most straightforward choice for a one-country trip.

Regional packages cover multiple destinations within a region, such as Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East and North Africa. They are particularly useful for multi-stop holidays or business trips because travellers do not need to arrange a new package at every border.

Global packages are designed for journeys across several regions or for frequent travellers who want broader coverage through one eSIM. Some options also include calls and texts. Unlimited packages are ideal for peace of mind and allow travellers to use their devices more freely without monitoring every gigabyte.

What trends are you seeing in how Middle East travellers use data abroad, and how has that shaped Airalo’s product decisions in the region?

Middle East travellers are particularly mobile-first and digitally confident. Connectivity is no longer viewed as an optional travel extra; it supports almost every stage of the journey, from managing bookings and digital payments to using maps, communicating through messaging and VoIP apps, sharing content, and working remotely.

The regional eSIM market reflects that shift. The eSIM market in the Middle East and North Africa grew by approximately 20% in 2024, alongside strong tourism growth and increased demand from GCC travellers for convenient, borderless connectivity.

This has encouraged us to offer greater flexibility: local and regional packages for different itineraries, more unlimited options and trip-length choices, simpler installation and connection-checking tools, and 24/7 multilingual support in key regional languages including Arabic and English. Transparency is also essential. Travellers want to understand what they are buying, what network experience to expect, and how much it will cost before they depart.

Can you walk us through Airalo Partners and what it lets airlines, travel agencies, and tour operators offer their customers?

Airalo Partners enables businesses across the travel ecosystem—including airlines, travel agencies, and tour operators—to offer eSIM connectivity to their customers & for their employees as well. We support a range of flexible partnership models, from affiliate collaborations to more integrated B2B and B2B2C solutions, depending on each partner’s needs.

Through these partnerships, businesses can make connectivity part of the wider travel experience, provide customers with a simple way to stay connected abroad, enhance loyalty, and unlock additional revenue opportunities.

Tell us about a recent partnership or product launch you are particularly proud of. What problem was it solving?

One recent product launch we are particularly proud of is the expansion of our unlimited data packages. Travellers often tell us that one of their biggest concerns is running out of data at an inconvenient moment—while navigating an unfamiliar city, accessing a booking, contacting family, or arranging transport.

Unlimited packages were designed to remove that anxiety. Rather than calculating every gigabyte, travellers can choose a package that matches the length of their trip and continue using the services they depend on. The applicable high-speed allowance and fair-use terms are displayed clearly, so customers know exactly what to expect.

The response demonstrates how important peace of mind has become: unlimited plans, launched in the third quarter of 2025 and now available in over 150 destinations, have grown significantly since launch. It reflects a broader shift in which connectivity is becoming as fundamental to a journey as other travel essentials.

What can travellers and partners expect from Airalo in the coming months? Anything you can preview?

Our focus is on making international connectivity even simpler, more reliable, and more deeply integrated into the travel experience.

For travellers, that means continuing to reduce friction around choosing, installing, and managing connectivity. We are diversifying package choice—including unlimited options—while constantly improving features such as device-compatibility alerts, step-by-step installation guidance, package comparison, connection checks, and automatic renewal options.

For partners, the opportunity is to make connectivity a built-in part of services travellers already use, whether through an airline journey, loyalty programme, travel-booking platform, fintech app, or corporate travel system. We will continue investing in flexible integrations and partnerships that allow businesses to offer connectivity in a way that suits their own brand and customers. We have several exciting updates in the pipeline, which we look forward to sharing over the coming year.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities—or challenges—for connectivity and travel technology in the Middle East?

The Middle East presents an enormous opportunity. The region combines rapid tourism growth, digitally advanced consumers, widespread adoption of eSIM-compatible devices, and ambitious investment in aviation, hospitality, smart cities, and digital services. This creates an ideal environment for connectivity to become part of the travel experience by default rather than something travellers arrange after landing.

Partnerships will be central to that opportunity. Airlines, banks, travel platforms, tour operators, and telecom companies can embed connectivity into journeys and loyalty programmes, making travel more convenient while creating new ways to engage customers.

The challenges are mainly fragmentation and education. Some travellers remain uncertain about switching from physical SIMs or worry about activation. Addressing those barriers requires simple product design, transparent pricing, strong local-network partnerships, multilingual support, and clear guidance—particularly encouraging travellers to install their eSIM before departure.

If you’re planning a trip and want to try their eSIM for yourself, the code GULFINSIDER gets you 10% off at checkout, or use this link, and it’s applied automatically.

READ MORE: The End of Roaming Panic: What eSIMs Mean for Modern Travellers