Contributor - Middle East

Peter Shaw-Smith

Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier (LCC) Flyadeal has seen “phenomenal growth” in its first 18 months and now looks to launch international flights as early as this year.

 


The airline started flying on Saudi Arabia's National Day, September 23, 2017, and now flies to eight domestic destinations. “Fast forward to the end of December 31, and we were at 10 [Airbus A320s], and an 11th came in early January,” CEO Con Korfiatis told AIN at the Saudi Airshow March 12. “We've grown from having 200,000 to 300,000 passengers from startup in September to the end of December 2017, to two-and-a-half million customers carried in 2018. It really shows the potential in the market.”

 


The airline has stimulated travel and expanded the market, according to Korfiatis. “We have first-time fliers, and people who have flown before who wanted to travel more frequently and couldn't afford to, but can now,” he said. “We've provided a product for private enterprise and small business who need to travel frequently and perhaps have found a more cost-effective way of doing it.”

 


He said Saudi Arabia ranks as the largest domestic market in the Gulf, offering 27 international, regional, and domestic airports. “We're only operating eight of those,” explained Korfiatis. “We've got enormous expansion available.”

 


Hajj and Umrah pilgrims bound for Mecca and Medina represent a major part of the business plan. “We are looking at international operations, potentially as early as this year, as well,” he added. “There's an incredible outbound market internationally. Saudis are avid travelers. From the inbound point of view, obviously with the two religious sites that are here and the 2030 Vision objectives around growing traffic from 8 million to 30 million a year, [there is] enormous inbound growth potential as well.”

 


Two years ago, Saudi Arabia had two airlines: national carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines—Flyadeal’s sister company—and National Air Services (flynas). The government then decided to deregulate licenses and open the field to three new players: SaudiGulf Airlines, Nesma, and Flyadeal. Having a larger parent helped, Korfiatis said. While SaudiGulf took four years to get its AOC, Flyadeal received its ticket in nine months.

 


“We felt there was white space in the low-cost segment,” he explained. “And so Flyadeal was established on the basis of a business plan that said the kingdom needs a true low-cost airline; no one is filling that space right now. And we saw it as an opportunity for the group.”

 


Flyadeal established its initial hub in Jeddah. “In December, just a few months ago, we expanded that to a Riyadh hub as well,” he said. “We [also] have what we call a virtual hub in Dammam, and that means the aircraft that are based in Riyadh fly beyond Dammam to other points in the kingdom and back via Dammam. That establishes a bit of a network out of Dammam without actually having aircraft and crew based there at the moment. I think in time we could have the aircraft and crew there as well.”

 


Saudi Arabia ranks second worldwide after the U.S. for daily YouTube views, and the airline does a brisk online business. “Saudis are very avid social media users,” noted Korfiatis. “Internally, we say we want to be mobile first. We've been very focused [on] the way we've gone to market and putting time and development into online check-in and boarding passes.”

 


Flyadeal saw Saudi female cabin crew enter local service for the first time ever earlier this year and has also introduced women-only seat rows on its aircraft. It even made headlines earlier this year by what Australian Korfiatis called “pranking the nation,” which garnered the airline “a lot of kudos.”

 


“We thought it'd be a bit of fun to tell the nation that we were going to put seats in the cargo hold as we don't fill it with baggage,” he said. “We produced a serious video, with architectural drawings and interviews with customers about the idea and pictures of what it looked like. It had an incredible impact. I think we got something like 250 million online social media impressions in the space of three days.”

 


Speaking on March 12, Korfiatis didn’t want to sound premature in guessing the implications of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crash on Flyadeal’s Boeing Max 8 orders, adding that the airline hadn't committed to any short-term deliveries. In late December the airline announced a firm order for 30 Max 8s along with options on 20.

 


As of mid-March, Flyadeal had not finalized the timeline for any Max 8 deliveries. “That's what we have yet to pull the trigger on; they could start coming as early as the late third quarter, early fourth quarter this year if we're ready for them,” he said.

 


“We have nothing further to add at the moment. We are still monitoring and evaluating what is coming out. We have reached no conclusion so far,” Korfiatis told AIN on&nbsp;April 1.

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