Saudi Arabia’s national airline launch flights from Birmingham Airport

Flights from Birmingham Airport to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, launched for the first time today (July 2).

Saudia, which is the national carrier from Saudi Arabia, has now started their operations in Birmingham and they’ll be flying three times a week to Jeddah from Birmingham Airport.

Saudia has expressed a keen interest in expanding their services to Birmingham, and enhancing options for travellers in and out of the city.

After the Saudia plane took off from Birmingham today, the airport’s CEO Nick Barton, said: “Jeddah is a fascinating historic city, very big on tourism for Saudi Arabia, but crucially as well, they connect to many flights and destinations across the world from the east, so it’s a very big day for us at Birmingham Airport.”

Manal Alshehri, Sales VP for Saudi, told BirminghamWorld: “The UK is a big market for us and we’re proud that we’re operating here now. We came here through our partners and the air connectivity programme. We believe there are three segments that are very important to use. First, Saudi is opening to the world right now, so we believe that we will have a lot of tourists coming to Saudi Arabia.

“And the second is that there is a big community which has an interest in England and especially in Birmingham. The third reason is as part of our transformation, one of our aims is to connect the east with the west so we believe we are now activating the transit market in Jeddah.”