Saudia Airlines

[Dobbo]

Saudia to introduce a twice weekly service to Rihyad from 23 June, B789.

Meshes in with the current 5x weekly Jeddah service - so SV are now daily from MAN.

 

[Aceshigh]

Great result !
"Another brick in the wall."

Another regular poster on fruit has also suggested Kuwait may be next. Yippee.

That user also seems to post a lot of rumours etc similar to the person who was on here who retired.

Am I naive or are they same person ?
Don't understand why they made a grand farewell from our little group but have gone elsewhere?

 

[Dobbo]

I can remember our friend posting about Rihyad some time ago when Manchester-Rihyad appeared on SV's route map.

These things obviously take a long time to come to fruition.

 

[ethanegcc]

Great result !
"Another brick in the wall."

Another regular poster on fruit has also suggested Kuwait may be next. Yippee.

That user also seems to post a lot of rumours etc similar to the person who was on here who retired.

Am I naive or are they same person ?
Don't understand why they made a grand farewell from our little group but have gone elsewhere?

I am feeling the exact same thing, so not sure...

Great news and a route I have been desiring for a while - hence on my recent route development list. Glad to see it is not a triangle service either and a non-stop to Jeddah and Riyadh. Considering the state of the Saudi economy, it is great to see new routes to Manchester sprouting up, and a daily SV operation at Manchester.

 

[Aceshigh]

There are upwards of 34 flights a day YES 34 between Riyadh and Jeddah. It makes it almost a seamless operation to both cities. And we now have the "daily" which gives it the added kudos of "certainty of operation".

 

[ethanegcc]

Great news and with this, we are now on par with the likes of Paris, London, Washington, New York and Los Angeles which are most of the western destinations that have Saudi links to both Jeddah and Riyadh on a frequent basis.

 

[ethanegcc]

Riyadh is now bookable on google flights, as it previously was not. I still think they are loading it in however as it is currently a little temperamental, but showing from 23JUN twice weekly, as expected. Saudia currently have not completed/opened reservation for winter 2017, but I imagine it will remain the same.
View attachment 4455

 

[Land23R]

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38...adds-seasonal-riyadh-manchester-route-in-s17/

Unfortunately, it's only seasonal and operates for about 11 weeks to 8 Sep.

 

[ethanegcc]

As Saudia are pretty bad at loading up their schedules and all but two routes out of Riyadh are year-round (including Munich which is heavily a tourist market) I would still hold out some hope of a year-round service.

 

[Dobbo]

The airport have "announced" the new Rihyad route on its Twitter feed.

 

[ethanegcc]

No mention of seasonal, which is encouraging - hopefully it will be reverted to year-round to truly provide the benefits of seven day links to Riyadh.

'Saudia already runs a service connecting Manchester Airport with Jeddah, which means that with the launch of the Riyadh route, North West passengers can now fly direct to Saudi Arabia seven days a week.' - Nice to also get some coverage for the Jeddah route.

The airline’s UK manager, Fikry Altowayan, said: “We are excited with this newest addition to Saudia’s growing 83 destinations. We renew our commitment to our passengers by providing easy access, comfort, competitive pricing and convenient travel to the capital as well as more options in flying to further destination either via Jeddah or Riyadh." - good to see pushing onward connections as well as travel to KSA

Fikry added: “Manchester Airport is ideally situated to serve as Saudia’s gateway to cater to our guests from the North.“ - nice to see they are happy with MAN and using the 'gateway to the North' tagline

Here's hoping it goes year-round!

 

[Dobbo]

Further to the above, I understand this will be a year round route.

 

[ethanegcc]

Further to the above, I understand this will be a year round route.

Have you got any sources? Great news if so. Fantastic to see Saudia's commitment to Manchester - daily is a word I love!

 

[ethanegcc]

Saudia will be offering a special service for passengers transferring from other destinations through Jeddah or Riyadh to the UK, regarding the laptop ban:View attachment 4647

 

[ethanegcc]

Saudia offering scheduled Medina links in August
01AUG17-28AUG17 MTWTFSS MANCHESTER /MEDINAH
08AUG 09AUG .23.... MAN MED 1100 1925 SV 124 789*C

From a source on PPRuNe

 

[ethanegcc]

Further to my above post, Saudia will now be offering 200MB of complimentary Wi-Fi in all classes to the UK and US: View attachment 4697

 

[ethanegcc]

Nice to see them advertising the Riyadh service on their ***Links to other Social Media platforms are not permitted***- page also. Great picture of Manchester, with the modern face of the city showing through in the background. Lot's of people in the comments also asking about transits to the Philippines etc.View attachment 4698 Business Class: £1,562 Economy: £600.56 (current exchange rates)

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Unfortunately, Saudia is one of the carriers affected by the laptop ban. So great wifi has come at just the wrong time for them.

 

[ethanegcc]

Bringing the Saudia thread back to life, it seems as if Riyadh will only be the seasonal route 23rd June-8th September as previously thought. I believe some flights in August are taken up (both RUH and JED) and replaced with MAN-MED routings, so reduced frequencies throughout August/September to Riyadh/Jeddah.

Does anyone know why the Saudia flights are running so late at the moment? They are usually very good in terms of punctuality, yet we've got a flight delayed today to 1300, a similar delay earlier in the week and also a delay, which resulted in a sub to 77W. Is it weather related?

 

[ethanegcc]

Saudia are introducing flights to Mauritius and increasing flights to the Maldives. This should help get a few more passengers on the MAN route. Also, with QR's traffic to KSA being reduced, Saudia should gain some more traffic on that front, too.