Airline startup Riyadh Air is expected to launch flights as of late 2025. The company already has up to 72 Boeing 787-9s and up to 60 Airbus A321neos on order. The airline will commence operations with 787s, and has just revealed the cabin finishes for these jets.
Continue reading: Riyadh Air Backtracks, Will Offer First Class… Eventually
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
The difficulty in only offering first class on one of their types of jets is that they are limited in selling any connection that includes a 787 or a321, which will be most connection. Seems a worse option than having 1st class in all of their products, or none of their products.
They will probably go with the 777X. They will probably stick with Boeing widebodies and Airbus narrowbodies
They are competing against EK that practically have a round the network F product.
For a startup airline to compete with the established world class F cabin providers, Riyadh is going to have to provide something really, really special.
AF moved the goalposts with their New La Premiere cabin. If Riyadh can resist the bling and achieve an understated, spacious and private cabin, they may be able to compete with the Gulf States airlines.
Geographically, their ME hub ambitions might fail to materialise.
Don't none of EK's new A350s have F?
QR and EY also have a fairly limited F footprint too. I don't think it's quite as bad as they make it out to be.
How is that any different than other airlines? E.g. La Premiere with a connection to most destinations.
A good number of EK A380, B777-300ER and all B777-200LR fly without first class cabin.
All A350-900 for now looks like it will be without first class (even their LH version with less than 300 seats)
B787-8 is coming in without first class too, though B787-10 is very likely to have first class.
I read an article on OMAAT the other day that mentioned The German People. I was surprised when visiting Florsheim, it's nice, and surprisingly in Germany.
I have been developing a lot of confidence in the Saudis, so I'm interested to see how this translates into their young people's vision for Arabia. I am inclined toward the Shafi'i people, but in these times maybe err on the side of caution is wise.
Mecca is too expensive, but that's something to think about.
Is this the new order Boeing was teasing about on twitter in the last week or so? The announcement of 20 B777-X will apparently be made at the Paris Air show in June.
Saudi Arabia will almost certainly have to buy Boeing to keep in Trump's good graces.
There's no commercial sense in offering a first class product then filling it with employees, points redemptions, and upgrades. Airlines seem to have become increasingly choosy about only selling first on routes with pax who can afford to pay cash for the seats. Unicorns; like Ben's four F seats on JAL; do still exist, but I fear they'll become even more vanishingly rare as airlines add smaller, more deluxe cabins and restrict redemptions ever further.
First class is very challenging product, both in terms of service quality and economically. Only very few airlines roll it out on all long haul flights (e.g., LX) or at least on a large share of them (e.g., EK, BA). For most others, it is a niche product on very specific routes (e.g, AF, QR, JL, NH, TG, CX, GA) and therefore only a small sub-fleet is equipped with F. I guess Riyadh Air for good reason is first building up a sustainable J/Y/Cargo business and only then intends to have F on very specific routes.
Exactly. You fly LAX or SIN to CDG in LP, but then you're sitting in narrow body business class on the hop to Nice, Bordeaux, or Milan.