For quite some time, we’ve known that Saudi Arabia is working on developing a new airline, which has so far used the name “RIA.” Well, the plans for this airline have today been formally unveiled, and it includes a new name.
In this post:
Saudi Arabia’s new airline will be named Riyadh Air
Riyadh Air will be the new national airline of Saudi Arabia, intended to further expand Saudi Arabia’s aviation ecosystem, both locally and globally. According to the details that have been released today:
- The company will be based in Riyadh, and will connect Saudi Arabia’s capital to over 100 destinations globally by 2030; as part of this, a new mega-airport is also opening in Riyadh
- The airline will be acquiring modern aircraft, with an order an expected soon
- The airline is intended to usher in a new era for travel and aviation in Saudi Arabia, and provide tourists from around the globe the opportunity to visit Saudi Arabia’s cultural and natural attractions
- The airline is being funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), with the goal of greatly expanding travel and tourism in Saudi Arabia
- The airline is expected to add $20 billion of non-oil GDP growth, and create more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs
- The Chairman of Riyadh Air will be Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of PIF, while the CEO will be Tony Douglas, the former CEO of Etihad
It’s interesting how the new airline is being formally unveiled today with so few details. There’s no aircraft order (yet), no details of what the product will be like, no sense of the timeline for operations launching, etc. The only real new detail is the name of the airline.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this evolves
Saudi Arabia seems committed to launching this new airline concept. I get that the country has money to spare, though realistically speaking, I’m still not sure I totally understand the vision.
First of all, what’s the logic of Saudi Arabia starting a second major global airline?
- Saudia has been growing significantly, including modernizing its fleet
- Saudia has done a good job serving both Jeddah and Riyadh, by often operating alternating frequencies to the two cities
- While I think there are situations where it can make sense to split up airlines (like what Aeroflot did with Rossiya… well, at least before the invasion of Ukraine), I’m not sure I get the concept of creating two competing global long haul airlines, in terms of synergies, brand recognition, etc.
I suppose that perhaps the government thinks Saudia has “legacy” issues, and starting from scratch might just be easier. But at that point doesn’t it almost make sense to shut down Saudia, send the planes to the new airline, and start over, rather than having two competing government-owned airlines?
The airline faces one biggest challenge, though, if it hopes to compete with Emirates. I think it goes without saying that a lot of people aren’t comfortable with traveling to or through Saudi Arabia, or supporting a Saudi Arabian company. If this airline actually wants to compete on the global stage for transit passengers, the key is Saudi Arabia relaxing restrictions, including around alcohol, clothing, conduct, etc.
Places like the UAE have shown that you can have laws based on Islam while still attracting tourists from all over the globe. That’s not to say that I agree with all of the UAE’s laws (of course), but it’s objectively a place that many feel comfortable traveling to, with fairly few problems. Saudi Arabia doesn’t have the same reputation, at least as of now.
Lastly, with the pace at which this airline intends to grow, presumably it will largely be focused on serving international transit passengers (like its Gulf rivals), rather than just those traveling to and from Saudi Arabia. I can’t imagine the airline will have much success doing this profitably, given the competition and the concerns many have about Saudi Arabia.
Bottom line
Riyadh Air will be the name of Saudi Arabia’s new national airline (which we’ve known as “RIA” up until now). There aren’t many additional new details beyond that, though a major aircraft order is expected shortly. I’m looking forward to learning more details.
What do you make of Riyadh Air?
I spent a week in Saudi Arabia last month. The pace of modernization is astounding. To see what is planned for Riyadh, google "New Murabba". I'll be excited to try Riyadh Air.
No alcohol on board, not many international tourists… that’s the big difference to all the gulf airlines.
Another reason I can think they'd open a second airline is to have one "dry" and have the other serve alcohol to cater to an international clientele. Beyond that, a lot of people turn a blind eye to the transit country if the tickets are dirt cheap. Recently picked up a MNL-IST ticket in J on Saudia for sub 1300 RT which is pretty insane IMHO.
expecting upcoming world no 1 airline ...inshallha
Only with booze!
I dont think profitability is the goal of this airline. The goal is to promote tourism to it's home, just like Qatar Airways goal is. If they don't need to make a profit then they can offer lower fares than their gulf rivals and they will gain market share.
It's amazing how people morals are forgotten about when they can save a bit of money. They can offer cheap Y fares to the backpacker market...
I dont think profitability is the goal of this airline. The goal is to promote tourism to it's home, just like Qatar Airways goal is. If they don't need to make a profit then they can offer lower fares than their gulf rivals and they will gain market share.
It's amazing how people morals are forgotten about when they can save a bit of money. They can offer cheap Y fares to the backpacker market who will book it because they will think "well I'm just connecting, I'm not actually entering Saudi, so it's not as bad".
Saudi Arabia have more money than they know what to do with because of their oil. If they want a mega airline they will build it
PS: RIA is a better name than Riyadh Air which just sounds clunky.
Still a takfiri government, takfiri airline and takfiri regime that cares about nothing but enriching itself and attcaking neighboss.
One of elements that Ben forgot is that Saudia, while a national carrier - is predominately a Jeddah airline and predominately caters to pilgrims. Airline that will cater to Riyadh and Neom crowd (businesses, digital nomads, liberal members of society) will have vastly different priorities. Let's see how the layout of those A321 / B789 / A351s will look like. Sounds like First / Business / Premium Economy / Economy, and Business / Economy on narrowbodies.
@Never in Doubt
Yes, indeed! It wouldn't be OMAAT unless the woke, faux concerned, performative, pearl-clutching, finger-wagging, 'holier-than-thou' types made an appearance, en masse, to berate those evil foreign types...Never mind the troubles at home, like mountains of shit in San Franscico streets, and hundreds of homeless squatting every night in Chicago O'Hare, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
...."lol."
That's about the level of cogency that such tripe merits as a response.
All I care about is whether or not they will serve booze. If not, they will fail.
That logo unfortunately looks an awful lot like the logo of an Japanese long and short haul low cost airline called Zorair that I made up a year ago. (It is inspired by the real life Zipair. The name comes from “aozora” which is Japanese for “blue sky”, the fact that it sounds like “soar”, and me finding it cool to have an airline starting with Z). I used an R stylized similarly to that...
That logo unfortunately looks an awful lot like the logo of an Japanese long and short haul low cost airline called Zorair that I made up a year ago. (It is inspired by the real life Zipair. The name comes from “aozora” which is Japanese for “blue sky”, the fact that it sounds like “soar”, and me finding it cool to have an airline starting with Z). I used an R stylized similarly to that logo but I put two of them together to form a symmetrical image of the rising sun over Mt. Fuji. However I only used half of the logo (one R) for the design on the tail (kind of like what Hainan Airlines does if you look at their logo vs their tail design) and I really hope their tail doesn’t look just like that. At least the colors I chose are very different from their dark blue. Still I will sue them for copyright infringement.
Gleiff’s comments are so inappropriate I am disappointed they have not been taken down.
Also, they will need to join one of the big alliances and make the inflight experience similar to other middle east carriers to get business from them.
Wonder what Tony Douglas will be paid.
Wonder what part of hell he’ll end up in
Personally I wouldn’t give this so called Kingdom airtime, promoting this country and its airline industry in any format is dancing with devil.
Most of comments here are from ethnocentric westerners who ignore the fact that Saudi Arabia is going through unprecedented modernization.it would be interesting to review whet had been said by doubters about Dubai and Emirates in general few decades ago.Saudi investments are not haphazardly planned when it comes to such business.let us wait and see what is near future going to tell us about Ria
How many pieces of luggage full of journalist body parts can you check for free?
an obsolete shibboleth you are using here .you fit the description:few sandwiches are short of a picnic
If Saudi Arabia has extra money they should help those Muslims pilgrims who cannot perform Umrah or Hajj because of financial problems. From each Muslim countries they should collect applications for Umrah and Hajj and select approved pilgrims with full package like airfare and Hotel and visa fees.
LOL! They don’t help Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and various parts of Africa who are literally in mortal danger and homeless, what makes you think they will help out middle-class Muslims who can’t afford the incredibly expensive ultra-peak-season travel costs of a trip to Saudi during Hajj?
How do you find a job oppertunity with Riyadh Air ?
Pop down to your local extremist mosque mate
I don't think alcohol will matter. It will all depend on price. If the airfares are cheaper than Qatar or Emirates, people will fly this airline to get to where they need to be.
Alcohol will matter, and eventually RIA will serve it with provisos that somewhat satisfy local interests.
Of couse Alcool will matter, same as good service, ground service, lounge.
It's already a problem to fly there, everything else should be perfect to attract western customer.
Will they serve alcohol? If they want to attract westerners, they need to bow to what westerners expect.
I feel like the logic behind starting this airline is that Saudi Arabia has a pretty poor reputation in the West for it's draconian laws among many other things. Having an airline called Saudia doesn't leave much to the imagination about what the airline stands for however it is still a recognisable brand within the middle east and Muslim Majority countries which is probably why they haven't shut the airline down. So they've created Riyadh...
I feel like the logic behind starting this airline is that Saudi Arabia has a pretty poor reputation in the West for it's draconian laws among many other things. Having an airline called Saudia doesn't leave much to the imagination about what the airline stands for however it is still a recognisable brand within the middle east and Muslim Majority countries which is probably why they haven't shut the airline down. So they've created Riyadh Air as a more politically neutral option I'd presume in an attempt to appeal more to the Western Market. However choosing the name of the capital city for the new airline again doesn't really separate the airline from the government of Saudi Arabia at all
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, I doubt Saudi Arabia will change their laws to the same extent that their neighbours have in order to let their airlines flourish and appeal to tourists. So what we are looking at now is yet another one of Saudi Arabia's expensive hail Mary projects that are desperately trying to help the country go cold turkey from oil. But like the rest of these projects , Riyadh Air seems like yet another expensive vanity project that is too little too late to make Saudi Arabia a Dubai on steroids. Ultimately without massive changes to the laws of the country there is no way this airline will succeed.
Expected the concern trolling in these comments to be strong. Have not been disappointed.
I dont think profitability is the goal of this airline. The goal is to promote tourism to it's home, just like Qatar Airways goal is. If they don't need to make a profit then they can offer lower fares than their gulf rivals and they will gain market share.
It's amazing how people morals are forgotten about when they can save a bit of money. They can offer cheap Y fares to the backpacker...
I dont think profitability is the goal of this airline. The goal is to promote tourism to it's home, just like Qatar Airways goal is. If they don't need to make a profit then they can offer lower fares than their gulf rivals and they will gain market share.
It's amazing how people morals are forgotten about when they can save a bit of money. They can offer cheap Y fares to the backpacker market who will book it because they will think "well I'm just connecting, I'm not actually entering Saudi, so it's not as bad".
Saudi Arabia have more money than they know what to do with because of their oil. If they want a mega airline they will build it
PS: RIA is a better name than Riyadh Air which just sounds clunky.
If RIA intents to compete with Emirates and Qatar Airways, then their aspirations are certainly sky high! EK and QR are light years ahead of US carriers in terms of comfort and service. Good for the consumer... Hope they serve SFO and/or LAX soon.
"EK and QR are light years ahead of US carriers in terms of comfort and service."
EK isn't "light years ahead" of anything with 2x3x2 in business, lol.
More like they're stuck in 2007.
I have around flown 50 times through Dubai/Doha etc. over the years. I had many opportunities to fly Saudia instead - lower cost, SkyMiles redemption etc. - but never did due to fears that my family or I would unknowingly break some arbitrary rule and get into trouble with no recourse.
I would never, ever fly to Saudi Arabia. Not to save a nickel, not for tourism, never. Too much personal risk, too much stench of human suffering, too many dead journalists, too many human rights abuses (including the abuse of women).
No airline discount, PR campaign, water park in the desert or mockery from state propagandists named "Andrew" (yeah right) is going to change that. Many westerners feel that way, and we will not be swayed.
As a liberal American, I do not feel comfortable supporting this airline either.
I wish my fellow Americans -- plus Europeans and other members of relatively free society -- would look past the champagne and stop flying airlines of other dictatorships. That goes double for travel bloggers, who myopically lead the way.
None of these religious countries stuck in the Dark Ages can think much beyond d***-waving. Nobody wants to go to their wasteland except those compelled by their backward religion to do so. They don't create; they don't innovate. All they can do is spend petro dollars on shiny things to gawk at.
Middle East is the Future!!
Just like Allah and Islam, amiright?
Maybe let Russia and China know that
All countries have their plusses and minuses- granted there are lots of minuses here but they are trying. I have been to Dubai and Doha several times and they may be behind the West in some areas but are lightyears ahead in others (infrastructure, crime, qualify of life)....
as a conservative American, even I do not feel comfortable supporting this flag carrier with my business.
So has Tony Douglas been rehired after leaving??
@ vlcnc -- Hah, apparently, or maybe that report was wrong all along? Very strange...