Three years after Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Riyadh Air (RX), the airline has taken delivery of its first three custom-built Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. RX is now ready for take-off.
In this exclusive interview aboard one of the airline’s new planes, CEO Tony Douglas discusses fleet expansion plans, upcoming destinations including Cairo, Dubai, Jeddah and Madrid, and the ambition to serve 22 cities by March 2027. He also reveals details of the premium onboard experience which RX hopes will set it apart from competitors.
ON LAUNCHING AN AIRLINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST DURING THE IRAN-US WAR AND CHALLENGES DOUGLAS SAYS: “Well, I think I've been in the industry for over three decades and there's always been challenges around, be they geopolitical, economical, volcanic ash clouds, SARS, MERS, COVID and so on and so forth. I speculate there's probably going to be challenges going forward for the next generation as well.
“The trick to this is realising the fact that the demand for air travel is relentless first and foremost. I think I went on the record towards the end of COVID and said there'll be revenge tourism. It will go off like a fire hydrant and of course since then that's pretty much what we've seen.
“Right now, I think Riyadh geographically is fortunate where it's positioned. We all hope that the conflict will be resolved very, very soon, obviously. But what we see is that all the fundamentals are very, very strong. Tactical decisions in the short term, in terms of pivoting from one destination to another as a start-up, are almost a given.”
ON WHERE RIYADH AIR WILL FLY TO: “We're now planning to connect to 22 cities by March of next year. So that's only nine months.
“We're announcing four additional destinations over and above London Heathrow today, which will be Cairo, Dubai, very importantly for us Jeddah, as well as Madrid. Super exciting.
“We'll announce another six thereafter very shortly and, as you can imagine, the Indian subcontinent will be a big part of this one as well.”
ON THE THREE PLANES DELIVERED FROM BOEING THIS WEEK AND THEIR FIRST AIRBUS DELIVERY: “In the last 48 hours, we've taken delivery of three aircraft. We'll have another three by the end of this month. We'll have two in July and then after one a month. We're expecting to take our first Airbus delivery at the end of the year. So the birth of this airline is very much now. We're up and running and we're super excited.”
ON MIRRORING YOUR PHONE OR TABLET AND OTHER TECH NOT YET AVAILABLE ON OTHER AIRLINES THAT MAKES RIYADH AIR NEW AND EXCITING: “What we've got here is the world's most modern in-flight entertainment system. It's called Astra. It's super high definition. It's only live with one other airline at the moment. It's OLED technology. It has the ability as well where you can screen your own personal device to it.
“All of our aircraft have high-speed internet connectivity. So when we flew back two days ago, I did a Teams meeting an hour out to the whole of the Riyadh Air family.”
ON THE BEST SEATS ON THE PLANE: “So the first one would be the secret seat is Row 25. Row 25 in economy. There's two secret seats in there, they're really great. I came back on a 14-hour flight and I probably slept an hour and a half in Row 25, so there's a little bit of a clue when you're looking at your seat plan.
“This cabin [premium economy] we think is the absolute winner. So traditionally for so many airlines you turn left at Door 2 into a premium cabin, you turn right and you're into the really important economy cabin of course. What this product offers is something placed well in between. It's spacious, it's luxurious, there is that attention to detail.”
ON THEIR MILEAGE PROGRAMME IN COMPARISON TO OTHER AIRLINES: “Join Sfeer immediately and the reason for that is we will give all Sfeer members a best offer guarantee. What that means is you'll get our best price, you'll get free access to super-fast Wi-Fi onboard and the many other benefits through our partners as being a Sfeer member.
“Now that doesn't mean you won't be able to book in a traditional way through travel aggregators and other channels, but what it does mean is if you're a Sfeer member you'll get the best offer guarantee as well as collecting Sfeer miles and tier points.”
ON WHAT PARTNERS OR ALLIANCES RIYADH AIR WILL HAVE: “We have 11 partners that we've signed up with. We don't plan to be part of a formal alliance, but we've got 11 very important airlines that we're connected to.
“I'm only going to use two very quickly as an example in the interest of time. Delta in North America is super important if we're going westwards, to give us connectivity across the whole of North America and South America.
“And if we look the other way, of course, Singapore Airlines. That gives us great connectivity into Australasia and beyond. There's another nine and they're all equally important in the way in which this network will build really quickly.”
ON OVER TWO MILLION PEOPLE APPLYING FOR A JOB AT RIYADH AIR: “We've had over two million people apply to be considered for being members of the Riyadh Air family over the last two and a half years. Two million people. This is incredible. 146 different nationalities and right now we've got over 60 different nationalities in our cabin crew.
“At the end of the day, you could have arguably the best hard product and soft product, but without great people who've got empathy, who can actually give Hafawa, that warm Saudi welcome, and make you feel great, all of the rest of it doesn't deliver the benefits that we would wish for.”
Tom Burges Watson’s broadcasting career began at CNN International, before he then joined France 24 in 2008 as a producer and then business Editor. Since 2011, he has been a full-time news anchor reporting for the BBC World Service, Fox, Monocle, NBC and now Al
Arabiya News. Tom, who has an MA in Japanese from Edinburgh University and studied management and finance at INSEAD in Singapore, speaks French, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish.
A 24-hour digital news platform publishing breaking news, politics, business, features, opinion and lifestyle, Al Arabiya English is the leading source of news and opinion from the Middle East for English-speaking audiences around the world. With a headquarters in Riyadh and correspondents across the region, Al Arabiya English presents a globalised view of the Arab world to audiences across five continents.
