Delta’s Riyadh Flights Are So Empty That The Airline Is Basically Giving Away Seats

In late 2025, Delta announced plans to launch nonstop flights between Atlanta (ATL) and Riyadh (RUH), with Delta CEO Ed Bastian recently claiming that Saudi Arabia is one of his favorite places that he has been in a very long time. The airline is partnering with Riyadh Air, but beyond that, the company is obviously chasing subsidies, given that Saudi Arabia is paying airlines to fly to Riyadh.

A couple of weeks ago, I posed the question of whether Delta would actually launch this service in a matter of months, since everything pointed to these flights being very empty, and having virtually no bookings. That’s why I think it’s interesting to note that Delta is finally trying to incentivize people to take this flight, with some insane SkyMiles deals… if you’re willing to fly economy.

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Want a cheap ticket to Atlanta? Book a flight to Riyadh!

Delta has put out a press release about how interesting Saudi Arabia is, also promoting a SkyMiles award sale for flights to Riyadh. As of late, it’s not unusual to see Delta have SkyMiles award sales, but this seems to be one of the most aggressively priced ones that we’ve ever seen.

For example, Delta is charging just 15,000 SkyMiles for a one-way ticket from New York to Riyadh via Atlanta. If you have a co-branded SkyMiles credit card you get an additional 15% discount, bringing the cost down to 12,700 miles.

Here’s what’s hilarious — if you were to just redeem miles for the same flight from New York to Atlanta, you’d pay nearly double as much compared to flying all the way to Saudi Arabia.

So I’m by no means encouraging hidden city ticketing, given the potential consequences (and also keep in mind that you need a visa for Saudi Arabia), but I’m sharing this more for demonstrative purposes. It’s not unusual to see a ticket be cheaper when you connect vs. fly nonstop, but typically the segment you’re “throwing away” isn’t a 13+ hour flight.

Interestingly, despite nearly empty cabins, Delta One still isn’t on sale with SkyMiles on a vast majority of dates, so obviously Delta is still hoping to generate some revenue in the forward cabin.

I’m curious to see how this service plays out…

As I’ve stated before, I’m very curious to see how this service plays out:

• I’m confident that this route will have very low load factors for quite some time, since it takes time to build up demand like this
• Saudi Arabia is largely footing the bill for new service, though I don’t know to what extent that’s the case; can Delta fly planes basically empty and break even, or just how much are the incentives?
• I understand the long term strategic goal of funneling passengers throughout the region in partnership with Riyadh Air, but it’ll also take Riyadh Air some time to build up its network; for that matter, I know many Delta flyers like their booze, so I’m curious what their willingness is to connect through Riyadh when traveling elsewhere, even though Riyadh Air has a great inflight product

I have to imagine that Delta will follow through on launching this service as of late October, simply from the perspective of saving face with the country and partner Riyadh Air, if nothing else. But who knows how this all plays out in the long run…

Bottom line

A couple of weeks ago I covered how Delta’s upcoming flights between Atlanta and Riyadh seemed to be basically empty, ahead of the late October launch. Delta has now launched a SkyMiles award sale for the new route, and it has among the most attractive prices we’ve seen.

You can fly one-way to Saudi Arabia for just 12,700 SkyMiles if you have a co-branded credit card. If you’re originating in New York, you’ll pay about half as much to fly from New York to Atlanta to Riyadh as you would to just fly to Atlanta.

It’s not surprising to see Delta incentivizing people to take this flight at any cost, though I’m curious for how long the airline can sustain really low loads.

What do you make of this SkyMiles award sale to Riyadh?