Saudi Arabia’s flyadeal Pursues Rapid Domestic Expansion

flyadeal CEO Con Korfiatis discusses the low cost airline’s plans for deploying the three additional A320ceos being delivered in Dec-2018. The Saudia LCC subsidiary is using the three aircraft to open a second base in Riyadh, supplementing its original Jeddah base, and expand domestic capacity by 35% from Jan-2019. The three aircraft increases flyadeal’s fleet to 11 A320ceos after only 15 months of operations. flyadeal has no plans to acquire additional A320ceos and will instead start transitioning to the A320neo or 737 MAX 8 in 2H2019. flyadeal plans to announce by the end of Dec-2018 an order with Airbus or Boeing for up to 50 new generation narrowbody; deliveries are not likely to start for a few years but flyadeal plans to start leasing the new type in the interim to support its aspirations for a 50 aircraft fleet within five years.