Nasair to Launch Riyadh – Istanbul

Posted 28/04/2011

As reported earlier this year, Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier Nasair is to further expand its network in Turkey with the launch of a four times weekly Riyadh – Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen service from June 18.  The link will accommodate the growth in demand from Turkish expats living and working in Saudi Arabia, as well as the more than half a million pilgrims who travel to Saudi Arabia each year from Turkey.  It will be operated by Airbus A320 and Embraer 190 regional jets. 

Approximately 313,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two countries last year on scheduled services with flag carriers Turkish Airlines (THY) (74.3 per cent) and Saudi Arabian Airlines (22.8 per cent) dominating the market.  This summer THY and Saudia will both offer flights from Istanbul Ataturk to Jeddah, Madinah and Riydah.  An estimated 51,000 O&D passengers travelled between Istanbul and Riyadh in the past year, up 29.3 per cent on the previous 12 months.  THY dominates this market with a daily schedule from Ataturk but no-one currently offers flights from Sabiha Gokcen on the Asian side of the city.

The Turkish air travel market is one of the largest in the region from Saudi Arabia and Nasair is expected to grow further.  It currently offers four direct flights between Jeddah and Istanbul each week, three weekly direct flights between Jeddah and Adana as well as twice weekly direct services between Antalya and Jeddah and Antalya and Riyadh.  It now serves six domestic and 21 international markets.

---

With effect from March 19, 2012 the Breaking News coverage on Routesonline is powered by Airline Route.  For more analysis on these stories please read our expanded coverage of the key stories of the day in The HUB. 

You can also keep up to date with the latest network development news by following the live updates from @Routesonline, @TheHUBRoutes, @RouteExchange and @airlineroute on Twitter.  While all the latest news from our events can be seen by searching the #RoutesAfrica, #RoutesAmericas, #RoutesAsia, #RoutesCIS, #RoutesEurope and #WorldRoutes hashtags.

All material is copyright of UBM Aviation Routes but the views expressed are not necessarily the views of UBM Aviation Routes and the company shall therefore not be liable for the contents of any article that appears on the site.  Although the best efforts have been taken in collecting and checking the material we can not and do not warrant that the information contained in this product is complete or accurate and does not assume and hereby disclaims liability to any person for any loss of damage caused by errors or omissions.

PLEASE NOTE: From March 7, 2012 schedule data for all news stories has been extracted from OAG Schedules iNET; All GDS data is based on a live GDS update on the day of publication; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending December 2011.  All information is subject to change.