As part of the Saudi Arabian Air Connectivity Program, the Saudis are subsidizing flynas services to four destinations from Jeddah.
flynas, the Saudi Arabia-based low-cost airline, is now connecting four new destinations. These connections are being made as part of the Saudi Arabian national Air Connectivity Program to link Saudi Arabia with at least 250 international destinations by 2030.
flynas will be connecting these destinations to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Jeddah is a crucial hub city for those making a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city of Islam. A tenet of the Islamic faith is that once in an Islamic person’s life during a specific period in each year of the Gregorian calendar; if financially and physically fit, one should visit the Islamic shrines of Mecca. As such, King Abdulaziz International Airport is a hub for flynas and the Saudi flag carrier Saudia.
As per the above YouTube, a Hajj Terminal is explicitly built for this purpose and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). According to its website, SOM designed 1978 the Hajj Terminal, which opened in 1981, as one of the world's most significant cable-stayed fiberglass fabric structures. The terminal is intended to be a shaded village – not just an airport terminal – as its purpose is to give comfort and stamina to the pilgrims making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
There is also the Islamic pilgrimage of Umrah that can be taken at any time on the calendar. The Islamic faith commands Muslims to do both if possible but prioritizes the Hajj. More low-cost flights mean more opportunities to make Islamic pilgrimages.
With that, Saudi Arabia, flush with oil cash, has decided to invest in subsidies to airlines to increase tourism to the Islamic kingdom. The goal is to attract 100 million visitors by 2030 versus a projected 12 million by 2022 to raise the share of tourism in the Saudi economy from 4% to 10%.
The Saudi Arabian Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb explained the plan as follows,
The main purpose is to create direct flights to our main target markets. The program will compensate airlines to cover their losses from flying direct flights to these very important hubs for us.
Further details are in this Simple Flying article. But for the CEO of the Air Connectivity Program, Khalil Lamrabet,
The program values this partnership with flynas, which contributes to facilitating the travel of the Kingdom's guests from Marseille, Almaty, Algiers, and Casablanca, in line with our mandate to develop tourism air connectivity in support of the National Tourism Strategy vision and objectives.
flynas was born in 2007 as a Saudi Arabia low-cost airline. Originally nasair, the name got changed to flynas in 2013. The airline has codeshare agreements with the United Arab Emirates’ Etihad Airways and the Turkish low-cost Pegasus Airlines. Also, the airline, according to FlightRadar24.com, has 25 A320neos and 13 A320s with plans to grow the fleet of Airbuses substantially beyond that.
flynas has been ranked as the leading low-cost airline in the Middle East by the World Travel Awards for seven consecutive years and has been awarded the Skytrax International Award as the Best Low-Cost Airline in the Middle East for 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021.
Do you think the Saudi Arabian government is making an intelligent investment or not? Let us know in the comments.
Journalist - When not reading and writing about aviation, Joe is photographing it. Joe Loves educating the public about aviation, and generating enthusiasm around flying while supporting all those who work in aviation. Based in Skagit County, United States