Wizz Air is looking to extend its route network to Saudi Arabia and has signed a cooperation agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment. The agreement is part of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to triple the passenger traffic by 2030 for promoting tourism.
The Saudi National Air Connectivity Program sponsored the signing, which aims to investigate airline industry expansion potential in Saudi Arabia. The program is in line with the country’s broad and aspirational objective to quadruple passenger traffic by 2030.
Newly formed alliance
Saudi Arabia is a major religious destination that yearly draws millions of pilgrims to the two sacred places of Makkah and Madinah for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages. It has lately begun to promote leisure travel to diversify the economy besides religious tourism and oil.
Saudi Arabia expects to attract more than 70 million tourists this year, up from 62 million last year. Visits climbed by 130 percent on average this year compared to the first quarter of last year. The Kingdom expects to open doors to additional tourism-focused initiatives in the coming years. The Red Sea project, for example, is a high-end redevelopment that will include resorts on beaches and inland.
These initiatives would necessitate passenger demand, where Wizz Air’s newly formed alliance comes in. According to Wizz Air, these two companies will collaborate on possible investment and operational strategies to profit and serve the Saudi Arabian aircraft ecosystem. It will help to grow tourism and increase connectivity. The MoU underlines the parties’ shared view of the immense traffic possibilities the Budapest-based airline can offer to the Kingdom to drive new demand, which adds considerably to Saudi Arabia’s projected expansion.
Market competition
Wizz Air has increased its influence in the aviation business as the world’s fastest-growing low-cost airline. Wizz Air has already been operating to destinations outside of Europe, including Turkey, Morocco, and Israel.
Furthermore, Wizz Air is no stranger to the Middle East, as it operates Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, a joint venture with holding firm ADQ in the United Arab Emirates. This carrier plans to expand its fleet to eight airbus aircraft by October. However, the Middle Eastern aviation business is still challenging to break into. Wizz Air would compete with the operations of the leading three Gulf carriers, Etihad, Emirate, and Qatar, which all offer intercontinental flight services to multiple locations in the KSA. The Kingdom’s official carrier Saudia is also a major competition.
Wizz Air would be competing with flynas, which conducts over 1,500 flights daily to 35 destinations worldwide, including over 30 aircraft. Similarly, according to Bander Al Mohanna, chief executive and senior director of flynas, the airline wants to make a substantial contribution to Saudi Arabia’s aviation industry:
“From our vantage point as a Saudi airline, we see tremendous growth potential, aided by the Kingdom’s strategic location and the opportunity presented by Saudi Vision 2030 for the air transportation sector. flynas will test new aircraft with diverse capacities, fly to new areas, help tourism, and assist in transporting pilgrims and Umrah performers, all while increasing the world’s link to the kingdom .”
The future
Wizz Air’s great track history for security and overall growth suggests that the low-cost carrier will have little trouble breaking into the Middle Eastern industry. Given the dominance of flynas and other low-cost airlines like flyadeal, sustaining and developing might be a different challenge entirely.
