Saudia's budget carrier Flyadeal to launch flights to India next year
NEW DELHI: Saudi budget carrier Flyadeal is planning to launch flights from the Kingdom to India next year, its CEO said, as industry leaders gathered in New Delhi for the International Air Transport Association's annual summit.
Established in 2017, Flyadeal is a subsidiary of the Saudi national flag carrier, Saudia. Headquartered in Jeddah, the airline primarily serves domestic routes and has, over the past few years, expanded to international destinations in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa.
It currently reaches some 35 destinations. Another five or six will be added in India soon.
'We're planning to launch flights from the Kingdom to India next year,' Flyadeal's CEO Steven Greenway told Arab News on the sidelines of the IATA meeting on Monday.
'We're talking about five to six (destinations) in our first year alone — so quite a lot, and mostly secondary cities ... Our sister carrier Saudia will remain in Delhi and Mumbai. We're looking at the secondary cities.'
While he expects the airline's upcoming India operations to address mostly labor traffic, tourists are a growing group too, as Saudi Arabia is heavily investing in tourist destinations.
In the past few years the Kingdom has seen significant developments at its eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, eco-friendly and luxury resorts on the Red Sea coastline, and entertainment and sports complexes.
With their vast promotion, also involving Bollywood stars, more and more Indians are willing to visit Riyadh, Jeddah, or AlUla.
'You've got a country which is now open for business, which is now deploying key strategic initiatives that are going online — the Red Sea resorts and so forth. That will bring tourism,' Greenway said.
'I would like to think that we could probably have anything between 5 and 10 percent of our total traffic coming from India over the next couple of years.'
Tourism is booming in Saudi Arabia under the Vision 2030 diversification plan, with the sector expected to contribute 10 percent of the gross domestic product.
The Saudi Tourism Authority announced last year that it expected India to become its key inbound market, with 7.5 million Indian travelers visiting the Kingdom by 2030.
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