In a huge move for Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia), the airline has made the decision to purchase 100 innovative electric vertical take-off and landing planes in a bid to connect Jeddah with the Kingdom’s leading tourist destinations.
Group Chief Marketing Officer Khaled Tash said Saudia — the airline operated by his firm — will be the first in the region to us this type of travel technology.
German company Lilium, which is in the final testing phase for the aircraft, with operations expected to start in two years are providing the aircrafts. Tash told a local news outlet that Saudia will be using the new planes to improve access to destinations over the Red Sea and Makkah.
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“That will actually be our first priority in the next few years to connect to the airport with Makkah whereby some of our premium passengers can land in Jeddah airport, take one of these small planes and go to Makkah and back in a few minutes. That will be a breakthrough,” said Tash.
He continued, “When we think about what’s happening in the country, Vision 2030 is about a lot of transformation that is happening in the Kingdom and maybe today’s announcement that we made with Lilium, is probably a testimony to how Saudi national champions like Saudi airlines are walking the talk.”
He also explained that the airline hopes to be “at the forefront of innovation, EVTOLs — or electric, vertical, takeoff and landing aircrafts” because they are the future of air mobility. Tash also stressed that it would be groundbreaking for the airline to become the first airline to make this step towards EVTOLs in the MENA region.
The executive also stated that purchasing these 100 planes would be value for money for the airlines, as he stated, “By moving by big players like Saudia moving into early adoption of such a technology or such an innovation, that will have, hopefully a very good impact on the cost.” Tash continued, “So if we start with Jeddah to Makkah and then with with Jeddah to the Red Sea or Jeddah to AlUla URL, or Jeddah to King Abdullah Economic City, the more use cases we can find for this, the more commercial opportunities we will have and the less cost it will be. So if I have an aircraft that goes 20 times between Jeddah and Makkah each day, it will definitely be cheaper than going six times a day.”
Not only will these new planes be economically progressive, but will also be an environmentally friendly travel solution – which falls in line with the kingdom’s Vision 2030 plans. Tash said, “We think that electric, in terms of these kinds of EVTOLs, is the future for aviation, and we believe that our sustainability initiatives will be further strengthened. It’s not the only sustainability initiative that we're doing. We’re working on so many different fronts. We have one of the youngest fleets in general in our entire fleet that also has less emissions. We are committed to work on sustainability, more and more.”
