Emirates Air To Add Flights To Saudi Arabia This Summer -Report

Thursday, May 03, 2012

BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Dubai-based Emirates Airline, the Middle East's largest air carrier, plans to increase available seats on flights to Saudi Arabia by 12% this year, Saudi-based Al Riyadh daily reports Thursday citing an executive.

Emirates will add four new flights a week from Jeddah starting from June 1 and three new flights a week from Riyadh starting from early August, Adil Al Ghaith, the airline's vice president for Saudi Arabia, said according to the paper.

In other news Ghaith said that his company hasn't applied for an air carrier license in Saudi Arabia and isn't among the 14 companies competing for this license, the daily reports.

The studies that Emirates Airline had carried out didn't give encouraging results for entering the Saudi market at this stage especially that the size of its aircraft isn't suitable for domestic flights in the kingdom, he added.

Newspaper website: http://www.alriyadh.com/2012/05/03/article732701.html

-By Beirut Bureau, Zawya Dow Jones; +961-1-985 757; BeirutZDJ@zawya.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-05-12 0624GMT