Friday, August 2, 2024
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In the first half of 2024, flynas, recognized as the world’s premier low-cost airline and the leading LCC in the Middle East, reported transporting over 7 million passengers, marking a 47% increase in traffic and a 37% rise in seat availability on both domestic and international routes compared to the previous year. This surge follows closely on the heels of their significant acquisition of 160 Airbus aircraft.
Bander Almohanna, CEO and Managing Director of flynas, commented: “Our record performance during the first half of 2024 is driven by our strategic growth plans as we continue to upgrade our fleet, increase capacity, and expand our global network. The strategy, ‘We Connect the World to the Kingdom’, is aligned with the objectives of the National Civil Aviation Strategy to enable national air carriers to connect the Kingdom with 250 International destinations, accommodate 330 million passengers, and to host 100 million tourists annually by 2030. “Our strategy will also play a key part in driving the objectives of the Pilgrims Experience Program (PEP) to facilitate access to the Two Holy Mosques, successfully transporting more than 100,000 pilgrims from 20 countries in the first half of the year.” Almohanna added
Almohanna emphasized that the enhancement in seating capacity, particularly to domestic summer locales, reflects flynas’s dedication as a national airline to bolster the tourism industry within the Kingdom and to fulfill the progressive objectives of Saudi Vision 2030. This effort is supported through collaborations with various stakeholders in the tourism and aviation industries. Additionally, flynas has broadened its international footprint by strengthening ties and forming partnerships with other airlines to extend its global network.
“flynas has taken delivery of 6 A320neo aircraft during 2024, which reinforced our operations, and created hundreds of new jobs for Saudis and opened applications for a new batch to the Future Pilots program, aiming to nationalize the co-pilot position in flynas by 100%. Additionally, our Future Engineers Program has accepted 22 Saudis into its second batch at the beginning of this year, contributing to nationalizing the roles in aircraft engineering and maintenance”. Almohanna added
Currently, flynas manages over 1,800 weekly flights across more than 70 destinations worldwide and has served over 78 million passengers since its inception in 2007. With the recent addition of 25 A320neo aircraft in the past 18 months, the airline’s fleet has expanded to 60 planes, indicating significant progress towards its strategic ambitions for growth and development in the aviation sector.