New UK to Jeddah routes announced
Guest Writers are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the specific writer directly
Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier flynas has announced new flights from London Gatwick and Manchester to Jeddah.
The new routes will launch on 8 April and 2 May respectively, both operating three times a week with the airline’s economy, economy plus and business class cabins.
Its first promotional fares start from approximately GBP160 for a return fare for the dry airline, which does not serve alcohol on flights.
Launching the flights in London today, Raja Azmi, CEO of flynas and Sulaiman al Hamdan, group CEO of NAS Holdings said it hopes to increase the frequencies next year.
“The UK will be our first European destination and was a logical choice with its position as one of the key commercial capitals of the world,” said Hamdan. “We’ve set our sights on expanding to London for quite some time and there is huge potential for religious tourism, the student sector and business travel.”
The new route will primarily suit the religious market with Jeddah’s proximity to Mecca but as part of its international growth the airline also hopes to appeal to the business and leisure travel markets in the UK.
Having previously fronted the AirAsia X venture, Azmi is conscious of the difficulty in running long-haul operations on a low-cost model but is confident of its performance.
“The jury is still out on the long-haul low-cost model but enough people are willing to pay on an economical basis and pay for the extra frills. We believe it will be successful for us and there is a market out there, with pilgrimages and a growing affluent Muslim economy we [effectively] ‘have a World Cup’ every day [to cater for],” he explained.
A series of new routes from Jeddah into Kuala Lumpur, Karachi, Lahore, Casablanca and Jakarta are also due to launch in April and May, with the seven-year-old airline hoping to turn Jeddah into a connecting hub.
“We hope to develop Jeddah as a transiting platform and with the new airport opening in the first quarter of 2015 it will be able to handle 70 million people and more interconnecting flights,” said Azmi. “This is just the start of the programme.”
With redevelopments at Jeddah’s airports and visa relaxation talks in place, the airline hopes to form the foundations of reaching an ambitious 20 million annual passengers in 2020. Last year it carried 3.3m and hopes to reach 5m this year.
“We are working closely with the Saudi Tourism Council as we are not happy with the process for some visas and hopefully there will be some improvement,” said Hamdan. “We are optimistic it will change, and we are also working to facilitate a transit visa so once the airport is open we will hope to get that.”
There are no aircraft orders at the moment but if the long-haul programme goes well Azmi would not rule out looking at fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380s for growth.
The new routes will be promoted in the UK through television and outdoor adverts, with the airline already in talks with travel agents to get sales up and running.
Comments are closed.