Riyadh Air (RX) is one of the two mega-projects in aviation today. The other is Air India, which I will be writing about soon.
When I last wrote about RX they had 60 Airbus A321neos and 39 Boeing 787s on order, plus another 787 which will apparently be used for training and spare parts. On 16-Jun-25 RX placed another order, this time for 25 data generating A350-1000s.
But where will Riyadh Air fly? Today I wanted to try and figure it out. I will also have some remarks on whether or not RX should join an alliance, and how they should calibrate their network for day vs. night-time flying.
No schedules have been published yet, but there are a number of clues that might give us an idea. These are:
1. The global cities that could be good launch route candidates when the first aircraft is delivered
2. The ten airlines that have signed partnership agreements with RX so far
3. Opportunities for Saudia to consolidate it’s operations that are currently split between Jeddah and Riyadh
4. Sports that RX is sponsoring
5. RX’s other strategic partnerships.
Spoiler alert! My top “magic seven” route shortlist for RX is:
1. Madrid
2. Frankfurt
3. Singapore
4. San Francisco
5. Seattle
6. Washington DC
7. Mumbai
For reasons that I will explain they may not be the international launch routes. But they are likely to be strong candidates. Find out why by reading on…
Unfortunately many of the good candidates are subject to slot constraints, so take everything I have analysed here subject to that rather big caveat.
This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!
This is the third article in my Saudi aviation series. The others are:
In the fourth and likely final part of the seriesI will be writing about what I think RX means when they say they want to be the most digital airline in the world. I expect that this will appear in a month of so. Stay tuned!
The launch routes when the first aircraft is delivered
RX’s CEO Tony Douglas reckons that his airline will eventually fly to more than 100 destinations. But it has to start somewhere.
It is quite probable that like many airlines they will put their new planes on a short route first to get the service in tune. The first route could well be Riyadh to Jeddah or Dammam.
What happens next will depend on the pace of aircraft delivery and the order in which aircraft types enter into service. The A321neos were ordered in October 2024. But the 787s were booked in March 2023. Most likely the Boeing twin-aisles will come first.
If two or more twin-aisle 787s arrive in quick succession, RX could fly almost anywhere daily.
A more interesting case is how they would deploy only one aircraft. There are three possibilities.
Cairo is Saudi Arabia’s most frequently served international market, with 532 flights a week in September this year. Istanbul and Dubai come second and third with 249 and 210 flights a week respectively.
American markets are too far away to serve with just one plane.
My guess is that RX will fly to at least one charismatic world city, plus Cairo. The candidate that everybody will be screaming is of course London.
But as the tables below show, London is slightly too far away to have comfortable turnaround times. As is Madrid, and RX is sponsor of football giant Atletico de Madrid, which must surely be a launch route candidate.
Paris and Frankfurt might work a bit better as they are a little closer.
Another possibility is heading east.
Far eastern routes like Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta have strong Islamic heritage. KL is the closest to Riyadh, but as the tables show it is just slightly too far even to tag on a domestic rotation. Jakarta would occupy one aircraft for a day.
A third option is to offer two routes that are either at the long end of short-haul or the low end of mid-haul, depending on your perspective. A rotation pair like Istanbul and Mumbai might work. The two routes each take four to five hours, which gives time for turn-around.
The ten airlines that have signed partnership agreements with RX so far
RX have put together a handy web page summarising all their partnerships. It makes interesting reading. Ten airlines are listed: Air China, Air France, China Eastern, Delta, Egypt Air, KLM, Saudia, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
The maps below show all the routes to and from Saudi Arabia that are currently operated by any of these airlines, except incumbent flag carrier Saudia which I will cover in the next section.
Altogether there are 546 such flights a week, providing 252.6 million Available Seat Kilometres. Egyptair operates 332 (60.8%) of these flights, but they are all relatively short. In ASK terms they only operate 38.3% of ASKs ex-Saudi Arabia.
RX has signed a partnership agreement with two airlines that do not currently fly into KSA: Delta and Singapore Airlines.