Arabia Saudí lanza nuevos vuelos directos con Marruecos

Saudi Arabia continues to link its cities with international destinations. This time the Saudi low-cost airline Flynas, a leader in the Middle East, has announced the launch of ten new weekly direct flights to Europe, North Africa and Central Asia from King Abdulaziz International Airport in the city of Jeddah.

Starting next November, under the agreement with the Air Connectivity Programme, Flynas will schedule three flights a week to Casablanca and Algiers, and two flights a week to the French city of Marseille and Almaty, the current Kazakh commercial and cultural hub of Central Asia.

"The signing of this agreement is in line with Flynas' growth and expansion strategy, which aims to connect the world to the Kingdom and reach 165 domestic and international destinations," said Bander Alhannna, CEO of the Saudi airline. He also announced Flynas' intention to become the largest airline in the Middle East and North Africa by increasing its fleet to more than 250 aircraft. 

This initiative has been supported by the partnership and support of the Air Connectivity Programme, which aims to expand Saudi Arabia's influence to new international markets, stimulating the growth of the Kingdom's airlines to connect to new destinations and achieve the goal of linking Saudi airports to more than 250 new destinations by 2030.

This was attested to by Air Connectivity Programme Executive Director Khalil Lamrabet, welcoming the launch of Flynas' new flights: "The programme values this partnership with Flynas, which helps facilitate travel for the Kingdom's guests from Marseille, Almaty, Algiers and Casablanca, in line with our mandate to develop tourism air connectivity in support of the vision and objectives of the National Tourism Strategy".

Currently, Flynas has been ranked as the Middle East's leading low-cost airline for seven consecutive years by the World Travel Awards and the Skytraz International Award. In addition, APEX Official Airline Rating has given it a 4-star rating out of 600 airlines worldwide.

But, in addition to developing the aviation sector in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Vision 2030 objectives also include a boost to tourism, by encouraging thousands of tourists and pilgrims from 250 international destinations to travel to the Kingdom, especially to the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, and thus recovering the pre-pandemic figures recorded by these destinations.

So far this year, more than one million Muslims have made the annual pilgrimage, Hajj, as it is written in Arabic, to Mecca and Medina, after more than two years of being stopped by the Covid. These numbers, which are expected to continue to rise, also include the mobilisation of more than 10,000 workers at the holy sites alone.

For the moment, the largest mobilisation of tourists and worshippers is expected to come from the Kingdom of Morocco. In July alone, a total of 15,395 Moroccan pilgrims visited Mecca and Medina.