Tourism & Hospitality | Sunday 8 February, 2015 1:03 pm |

flynas , Saudi Arabia's first and only budget airline that sets a new standard of efficiency for low cost travel in the region, promises to sustain the lowest fares, on-time flights and friendly service that it had done in the past year, the airline's new CEO said.

Paul Byrne who took the helm in November last year following a three-month term as Commercial Advisor to the airline, spoke to Saudi Gazette during its participation at the 2015 Jeddah Travel and Tourism Exhibition (JTTX) which concluded on Feb. 6, saying said " flynas this year will be continuing what we've done in the last two years. We spent a lot of money on time and branding. We are happy to be a Saudi national carrier. We are also happy to be a regional carrier and domestic carrier, so we know what we are good at. We know that we are very good in operating 28 aircraft, in business and economy sections. We will follow the low cost model, so we will sell catering and food on board. We give you a choice if you want the meal or not. We are doing this year what we did successfully last year."

flynas , which operates nearly 950 weekly, is committed to attract more customers and "consistently offers a good value," he said, adding that a new destination for flynas this year is from Riyadh to Cairo.

"We are consistently on time and we will consistently have as many low prices in advance as we can, and also try to keep our seats available for sale until the last minute," he averred.

Moreover, Byrne said "the thing that we are doing is to concentrate on selling in the Saudi market, which means two things -- bringing Saudis out of the country and also move Saudis around the country."

About the favorite destinations of flynas Saudis customers, he noted that Dubai is one of the top destinations whether from Jeddah or Riyadh. They are already expanding in to UAE, so they have now flights to Sharjah. He added that Sharm Al-Sheikh is also a very popular destination for Saudis and it's very convenient for both Jeddah and Riyadh. They consider Cairo one of the growth markets, and Turkey is one of the most attractive destinations for Saudis especially that Istanbul is one of the wonderful cities in the world.

flynas , he further said, is trying to make more connectivity to main Turkish cities. "We are consistently offering good deals in our website, and we are also launching a Turkish version of the website," Byrne added.

Yazeed Al-Rasheed, flynas Brand Manager, told the Saudi Gazette that the first aim to participate in such tourism exhibition is in order to to support the aviation sector as well as domestic tourism, and flynas will always participate in any event that supports tourism and economy.

On Feb. 5, flynas had launched strategic partnership cooperation with Careem ground transportation. "We will offer free transportation all flynas passengers to the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam through Careem App, and that offer will be for two weeks, Al-Rasheed noted.

Careem also present advantages and good offers to flynas employees, he added.

In low cost carrier, to get the advantages of low cost flights you have to book earlier, hence booking earlier will provide a lower cost. "Low cost carrier is a promising market in the region, and our rule is to make the people aware of the low cost carrier," he said.

"We don't only present lower prices but we also present a huge offers and deals. In 2014, we launched two different campaigns, the first one is fly by SR11 internally and SR111 internationally. By the end of the year we presented SR59 flying internally and SR95 flying internationally. We will continue in 2015 to present more surprise, sometimes the cost get higher and it's out of our control, because of the fuel price or operating service cost," he said.

We went on to say that "we don't call our passengers a customer, we call them a guests, as we present low cost prices despite our high quality services --whether before booking, after booking, also during the trip, on the flight and at the airport, and that could be the main reason of the success of flynas ," Al-Rasheed explained.
In 2015 flynas will witness new destinations locally and internationally, he revealed.