flynas doubles operational performance during H1, records an ‎‎120% accelerated growth in passenger number ‎

flynas, the Saudi air carrier and the leading low-cost airline in the Middle East, recorded a remarkable performance and rapid growth in its operational performance during the first half of 2022.

As part of plans to expand its fleet; flynas succeeded in increasing the number of aircraft to 38 aircraft in June 2022 compared to 26 aircraft in January of the year 2021, an increase of 46%, while the number of passengers on its flights increased to about 4 million passengers during the first half of 2022, an increase of about 120% from about 1.8 million in the same period last year.

The number of flights operated by flynas increased by 57% compared to the same period in 2021, and the first half of this year witnessed the launch of “flynas” for 16 international destinations from four Saudi cities, namely, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Qassim, to be among its destinations internally and internationally.

Bandar bin Abdul Rahman Al Muhanna, CEO and Managing Director of flynas, said: “The growth rates witnessed by flynas in all its operations are a result of the strategic expansion plan that we launched at the beginning of 2022 under the slogan “We connect the world with the Kingdom.”

Al-Muhanna continued, “We launched a number of new international destinations during the year 2022, to enhance the connection of various cities of the world to the Kingdom, and the company’s board of directors also agreed to increase the number of our orders for new aircraft to 250 aircraft, which will strengthen our position as the largest low-cost airline in the Middle East.”

Regarding the company’s strategy for growth and expansion, he confirmed that flynas crowned its expansion efforts this year by signing an agreement with the aircraft leasing company “AviLease” owned by the Public Investment Fund to purchase and lease back 12 new Airbus A320neo aircraft to be delivered within the two years 2022 and 2023 in order to expand operations and continue launching new destinations that meet the aspirations of travelers in the Kingdom.

In conjunction with the increase in the number of orders for aircraft; flynas announced earlier the opening of applications for the “Future Pilots” program to graduate 100 co-pilots, in the largest application of its kind in the Kingdom, after achieving a 100% localization rate for the position of co-pilots, as about 1,000 young Saudi men and women applied for the program, from which nearly 200 pilots have graduated so far, and which aspires to increase their numbers in the coming years.

flynas also successfully participated in the re-run of the flights of pilgrims and Umrah pilgrims from different countries of the world to the Kingdom after allowing the return of receiving pilgrims and the end of the ban, which came as a precaution against the spread of Covid-19 among pilgrims and Umrah pilgrims.

The company launched international destinations linking the city of Al-Ula with Dubai and the Egyptian capital Cairo, to enhance its contribution to enabling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to reach its goal of receiving 100 million tourists annually by 2030, and linking the Kingdom with 250 international travel destinations.

It is noteworthy that flynas received the highest rating in an assessment conducted by the non-profit organization APEX, which is one of the largest international airline associations, which included 600 airlines of various categories around the world. flynas came in the four-star category, which is the highest category for economic aviation in the world.

It was also ranked as the Best Low-Cost Airline in the Middle East by the World Travel Awards for seven consecutive years, and received the Skytrax Global Award as the Best Low-Cost Airline in the Middle East for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021.