Saudi flynas to suspend long-haul services

29 Oct 2014

(MENAFN) Flynas, Saudi Arabia’s first and only budget airline, announced it has decided to suspend its long-haul flights due to profits on these routes not meeting the caarier’s expectations, Arabian Business reported.

“We had some issues from a financial standpoint in terms of the profitability of some of the routes. We have taken a stand that we are suspending – not stopping – those routes for the moment and will relook at the whole situation again,” flynas Chief Executive said.

Flynas, which earlier this year said that its growth strategy would focus on developing long-haul flights to five or six new destinations including London, Manchester, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, using the Red Sea city of Jeddah as a hub, decided to that for the time being it would revert its focus back on expanding its short-haul services, and might look at a different model for long-haul flights at a later date.

The airline, which is owned by 37 percent by Saudi investment firm Kingdom Holding and the rest by National Airline Services Holding, said it expected to grow at least 20 percent annually and turn profitable in 2014 after seven years of losses since it was founded.

The airline, which currently operates 950 weekly flights from Saudi Arabia to 25 domestic and regional destinations, said it has carried 3.3 million passengers last year, but did not provide any numbers in regards to this year.