Connect with us

News

New Premium Airline Riyadh Air Prepares For Late 2025 Takeoff

The ultra-premium service has already begun forging strong partnership and sponsor deals, and plans to connect 100 cities by 2030.

Published

2 years ago

on

new premium airline riyadh air prepares for late 2025 takeoff

Saudi Arabia’s latest airline venture, Riyadh Air, is gearing up for its first flights in late 2025. With a strong emphasis on digital innovation, premium service, and strategic alliances, the airline is poised to shake up the aviation sector.

“By the end of this year, you will see Riyadh Air in the skies,” CEO Tony Douglas announced at the Saudi-backed Future Investment Initiative conference. His message was clear: the airline is fully prepared to serve both domestic and international travelers.

As a key player in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 initiative, Riyadh Air has been rapidly building international partnerships, such as its latest collaboration with LIV Golf. The airline was also responsible for bringing singer Jameela to Saudi Arabia for the first time.

CEO Douglas has ambitious hopes of Riyadh Air bringing back the golden age of aviation, comparing it to iconic carriers like TWA and Pan Am. He promised “haute couture, glamour, refinement, and style” from the airline’s cabin experience, setting a high bar for service and aesthetics.

Despite a desire to bring back the glory days of commercial aviation, Riyadh Air is still adopting a modern, digital-first approach. An AI-driven concierge service will integrate travel bookings with entertainment and dining options, with CEO Tony Douglas likening the system’s intuitive capabilities to platforms like Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb.

Douglas sees vast potential in the Saudi aviation market, calling it “underserved” and ready for growth. Riyadh Air has already secured connectivity agreements with major carriers like Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines, ensuring smooth connections to international destinations.

“With Delta, for example, a passenger flying from Riyadh can easily connect to Phoenix or Baltimore via Atlanta or JFK,” Douglas explained, highlighting the convenience of the partnership.

Also Read: Dubai Teams Up With Elon Musk’s Boring Company For “Dubai Loop”

The airline’s fleet plans include commissioning 72 Boeing 787s and 60 Airbus A321neos, with negotiations ongoing for additional widebody aircraft. Despite Boeing’s recent delivery issues, Douglas remains confident: “Boeing will come good, there is no question”.

By 2030, Riyadh Air aims to serve 100 global destinations, with Miami among the cities under review. Douglas pointed to Saudi Arabia’s rising tourism profile, noting that it was the second most-searched travel destination on Google last year, thanks to attractions like Diriyah, AlUla, and Riyadh itself.

Related Topics:
Advertisement

📢 Get Exclusive Monthly Articles, Updates & Tech Tips Right In Your Inbox!

JOIN 23K+ SUBSCRIBERS

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

on

August 27, 2026

By

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.

Continue Reading

#Trending