SAUDI ARABIA: Saudia Group Preparing to Issue Fleet RFP Covering 2030 and Beyond
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia
Saudia Group is in the process of finalizing the parameters of an RFP for its long term fleet requirements covering the years 2030 to 2040.
Sanjiv Kapoor, the acting CEO of flyadeal and Executive Vice President for Strategy at Saudia Group, told Al Arabiya the tender will cover both Saudia mainline and budget carrier flyadeal's aircraft needs.
"We hope to, at a group level, issue an RFP in the coming weeks or months to fulfil our needs going forward. And it's a clean sheet of paper. This is how many aircraft we need for Saudia and for flyadeal for each mission type, and how many by year. And the RFP will state the mission requirements. The OEMs need to tell us, all right, this is the aircraft we have for that mission that would work for you. And we go through the entire process and make a decision. There's no preconceived notion that we need to stay all Boeing or Airbus or do a mix. It's what's the right solution for our needs."
flyadeal's in-house fleet consists of nine A320ceo and thirty-six A320neo while widebody A330 metal is wet-leased in as needed. For its part, Saudia's passenger fleet entails thirty-seven A320ceo, fifteen A321ceo, seventeen A321neo, thirty-four A330-300s, thirty-four 777-300ERs, thirteen 787-9s, and eight 787-10s. Boeing says it has twenty-one more 787-10s and eighteen -9s still due. Airbus's August 2026 Order Book numbers show Saudia has 128 A321neo on order of which 16 have been delivered alongside ten A330-900neo which are also due.
Earlier this year, then flyadeal CEO Steven Greenway told AGBI the LCC will take its first 240-seater A321neo from June 2027. Towards the end of 2027, these will be followed by its first widebodies - the A330-900neo - which can pack up to 420 passengers and will include a small premium cabin. The A330s will allow flyadeal to reach Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Bangladesh, while at the same time serve new points in Western Europe like the UK and France.
On whether flyadeal will stick to Airbus given its commonality, Kapoor said there was no strict need to do so.
"It's not that we decided that we want to be all Airbus or not. I also chair the [Saudia] group fleet committee, and the way we make our fleet decisions is not based on whether we want Boeing or we want Airbus, but what is the mission that we want a solution for and who has the right solution for us at the right cost. So that's how we make our decisions."
At present, flyadeal's network covers Saudi Arabia, the wider Gulf and Middle East and North Africa region, India, Pakistan, and Europe. According to Kapoor, given the size of its market, India will play a key role in flyadeal's strategy going forward.
"India overall has been the engine of growth for many of the Middle Eastern carriers. That's where the volumes come from, and our aircraft did not have the range and capability until fairly recently to serve India as efficiently as we wanted. We made certain changes to our configuration and to the operating model. Now we can serve India efficiently, and it's going to be a key market for us. Not just India, the Indian subcontinent: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, potentially Nepal going forward. They're all going to be key volume markets which are perfect for the low-cost model."
Kapoor said flyadeal has had to adapt its business model to the realities of the market it operates in and as such, has strayed from the strictly LCC orthodox model as used by Ryanair, Southwest, and others.
"When we started, we started like a typical ultra-low-cost airline in the Western mode — Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air and so on — which is point-to-point, single fleet, direct distribution, fully digital. And that worked as long as we were small, as long as we were serving metro cities, as long as our clientele was digitally savvy. It worked well. But once you grow beyond that metro segment of customers and you start flying into markets which are group markets, labour markets, religious markets and so on, the entire distribution model and customer-segmentation model changes, and therefore we've had to change with that.
"In our part of the world, starting in the Middle East and heading into Asia and the Far East, low-cost carriers are not the Western model anymore. Low-cost carriers do connect. Low-cost carriers do have more than one aircraft type, because we are serving a completely different clientele now and we need to adapt our model in order to succeed in the demographics that we are in and in the markets that we choose to serve. So that's what's made us pivot from a pure ultra-low-cost European model into more of an Asian model, where there are connecting flights, where there are multiple segments, and where the simplicity or the purity of the ultra-low-cost model is apparently compromised. But actually we're doing what makes sense for our market and our business in our part of the world."
Kapoor said flyadeal has had to adapt its business model to the realities of the market it operates in and as such, has strayed from the strictly LCC orthodox model as used by Ryanair, Southwest, and others.
"When we started, we started like a typical ultra-low-cost airline in the Western mode — Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air and so on — which is point-to-point, single fleet, direct distribution, fully digital. And that worked as long as we were small, as long as we were serving metro cities, as long as our clientele was digitally savvy. It worked well. But once you grow beyond that metro segment of customers and you start flying into markets which are group markets, labour markets, religious markets and so on, the entire distribution model and customer-segmentation model changes, and therefore we've had to change with that.
"In our part of the world, starting in the Middle East and heading into Asia and the Far East, low-cost carriers are not the Western model anymore. Low-cost carriers do connect. Low-cost carriers do have more than one aircraft type, because we are serving a completely different clientele now and we need to adapt our model in order to succeed in the demographics that we are in and in the markets that we choose to serve. So that's what's made us pivot from a pure ultra-low-cost European model into more of an Asian model, where there are connecting flights, where there are multiple segments, and where the simplicity or the purity of the ultra-low-cost model is apparently compromised. But actually we're doing what makes sense for our market and our business in our part of the world."
Looking ahead to 2030, Kapoor says he expects flyadeal to reach a fleet of 99 aircraft, potentially 100, including widebodies and flying up to 8 hours. On how Riyadh Air will affect Saudia Group's own business, Kapoor said in the medium term, Saudia, as an airline hubbed out of Jeddah, will likely focus more on longhaul flying.
"So with Riyadh Air coming on, Saudia will concentrate more of its long-haul services, especially as Riyadh grows, on Jeddah. But I think together the two airlines — they're code-sharing now, Saudia and Riyadh Air — so it's not like we're rivals. We are sister airlines too, in that sense, and together we will, and together with the low-cost carriers, we will execute and deliver on the Saudi aviation strategy, which is very ambitious."
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