Saudi’s Flyadeal to launch international flights by early 2020

Saudi Arabia’s low-cost domestic carrier, Flyadeal, is planning to launch maiden overseas flights from early next year, Con Korfiatis, CEO, Flyadeal told Argaam in an exclusive. 

“Yes, we have plans to expand beyond the Kingdom, but we haven’t decided on the destinations as yet. But it would be safe to say our first international route would be within the GCC to start with,” Korfiatis said on the sidelines of The Aviation Show MEASA 2019 event in Dubai.

“We are in talks with a number of airports within the GCC and beyond. We hope to start international operations by early next year at the latest, but we need more aircraft to serve these routes,” he added.

Fleet expansion

At present, Flyadeal has a fleet size comprising a total of 11 brand new Airbus 320ceo aircraft. But that is not enough to start the international operation, believes Korfiatis.

“We have 30 aircraft on order but their delivery will start only from January 2021. Hence, we will approach the leasing market to fill the capacity gap in between,” he said.

Flyadeal, the low-cost arm of Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia), became the fifth domestic airline in the Kingdom when it launched services in September 2017.

“It has been a fantastic journey so far within just a little over two years of our operations,” he said.

“We have added new aircraft to our fleet, new destinations and we continue to connect the dots where required,” Korfiatis added.

Room to expand

Flyadeal is currently operating at nine airports and serving 14 routes, out of a total of 23 airports in the kingdom.

This, Korfiatis believes, gives a lot of room for airlines to expand within the kingdom.

“As Saudi Arabia embarks upon expansion and modernization of airports, there’s tremendous growth opportunity for the aviation sector,” he said.

Additionally, the huge 30+ million population strength within the Kingdom will support passenger demand in the future.

“This, along with the fact that Saudi Arabia continues to be a massive destination for pilgrims, the market will only expand,” Korfiatis added.

He also sheds light on the fact that the Saudi aviation market is growing, and therefore the entry of more players in the domestic scene is needed.

“Out of five domestic carriers, the two (Nesma Airlines and SaudiGulf airlines) are smaller players. If each of these five airlines had ambitions of owning a fleet of 50 aircraft or more, then it would have been a case of too many carriers,” Korfiatis said.

“In reality however, each of these players has a niche market to target, and is happy to have a small fleet. So I don’t think there’s any capacity issue,” he added. 

In July this year, the budget carrier announced it would operate an all Airbus A320 fleet in the future, Argaam reported.

Write to Sunil Kumar Singh at sunil.kumar@argaamplus.com