Tourism & Hospitality | Tuesday 16 June, 2015 8:36 am |

Saudi Arabian Airlines has signed a $8 billion deal to purchase 50 advanced Airbus aircraft, including 20 A330-300 Regional planes, to expand its domestic and international operations as part of its five-year strategic plan, the airline said Monday.

“The new planes will start arriving in the Kingdom shortly and their arrivals will be completed in less than three years,” said Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, director general of the national flag carrier. The order includes 30 A320s, one of the highest selling aircraft.

The first batch of the new fleet will arrive in the Kingdom in less than a year with the company receiving 14 new Airbus planes in 2016, 18 in 2017 and 18 in 2018.
Saudia is the first airliner in the world to operate Airbus’ new Regional version, Al-Jasser said, adding that the advanced aircraft would help boost the airline’s domestic and regional operations. The International Air Finance Corporation will finance the deal. “The new aircraft will provide adequate number of seats for Saudia’s domestic and regional flights,” Al-Jasser said.

He stressed the airline’s plan to purchase more than 100 aircraft during the next five years as part of its plan for 2015-2020. “Our priority is to increase seat capacity on flights operating between the Kingdom’s major cities,” he said.

Al-Jasser said his company would use the wide-bodied A330-300 Regional on routes having large numbers of passengers. “We’ll operate A320s mainly to operate flights between Saudi cities,” he said.