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Riyadh Air Makes Multi-Billion Dollar Deal With Boeing
The investment will see the Saudi Arabian airline take delivery of up to 72 aircraft.
Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air, the airline backed by the county’s Public Investment Fund, has ordered up to 72 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft in a multi-billion dollar deal.
The order is unprecedented for a new airline and highlights Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a major aviation hub.
The order comprises 39 confirmed aircraft plus another 33 wide-bodied 787-9 Dreamliners. It comes as Saudi Arabia’s national carriers announced their intent to order up to 121 aircraft in total, representing the fifth-largest commercial order by value in Boeing’s history.
The huge Boeing order will help to shuttle a projected 330 million passengers by 2030. His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the PIF and Chairman of Riyadh Air, applauded the move, saying, “This is a momentous day for PIF and Riyadh Air, and highlights our determination to significantly extend Saudi Arabia’s connectivity with the world”.
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Riyadh Air is a digital-first airline committed to sustainability, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 toward net zero emissions. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner is manufactured to achieve lower CO2 emissions, greater fuel efficiency, and pass stringent noise regulations.
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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.
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”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“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.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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