DUBAI-based airline flydubai has announced Monday that it will boost its services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with 12 new flights per week. An additional daily flight to Riyadh Airport (RUH) and five flights a week to Hofuf Airport (HOF) will start from 16 March 2019.

Commenting on the increase of flights to Saudi Arabia Hamad Obaidalla, Chief Commercial Officer at flydubai, said: «Saudi Arabia remains an important market for flydubai and we are delighted to be able to increase our services to the Kingdom as trade and tourism between the UAE and Saudi Arabia continues to grow.»

flydubai will now operate to 11 points in Saudi Arabia from its hub in Dubai. In addition, flydubai operates to Abha, Dammam, Hail, Jeddah, Jizan, Medina, Qassim, Riyadh, Tabuk and Taif providing passengers with the opportunity to connect onwards to Asia, Europe, India and Russia.

«We would like to thank the authorities in Saudi Arabia for their cooperation in supporting flydubai and providing the necessary facilities and services needed for the success of our flights. With these additional flights our commitment to serve our passengers in the Kingdom will enable passengers to travel to numerous destinations,» added Hamad Obaidalla.

flydubai has recently announced the launch of flights to Tashkent in Uzbekistan from March 2019 along with flights to Naples in Italy and Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from June 2019. It also recently launched flights to Kozhikode, India. The airline’s network of destinations has now grown to more than 90 destinations in 47 countries around the world served by a fleet of modern Boeing 737 aircraft.

As part of the partnership announced in 2017, Emirates will codeshare on this route. For bookings under the codeshare, Emirates passengers will receive complimentary meals and the Emirates check baggage allowance on flights operated by flydubai in Economy Class. Benefitting from this codeshare partnership, travellers from Saudia Arabia will have access to travel to hundreds of destinations all over the world via Dubai.

Emirates Skywards members can earn Skywards miles and Skywards Tier Miles on codeshare flights as per the existing Skywards mileage program. Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members travelling on codeshare flights can access flydubai’s Business Check-in counters and receive priority tags. — SG