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Saudi Arabia Rising: Riyadh King Khalid International Airport Leads Global and Large Airports
Riyadh King Khalid International Airport wins both the “Large Airport” and “Global” categories in Cirium’s 2024 On Time Performance awards.
Advisory Board Member Consultant and former Airline Executive
There have been many ground-breaking announcements coming out of Saudi Arabia in the past two to three years about new investments and initiatives: to these we can add the amazing performance of Riyadh King Khalid International Airport in winning both the “Large Airport” and “Global” categories in Cirium’s 2024 On Time Performance awards.
Whilst it is easy to announce grand plans and new investments, Riyadh Airport is delivering excellence already, achieving an on-time departure record of 86.65% in 2024, across 240,990 tracked flights, serving 115 routes. Every day, 24 hours a day, the airport has enabled the airlines and travelling public to benefit from a world-class performance, which handily beat the second-place finisher (Lima) by almost two percentage points and was ahead of its closest regional competitor, Doha, by over five percentage points. With a relentless focus on operational excellence and business continuity at the airside, allied to slot optimization and utilization in planning, combined with continuous improvements to the passenger experience, Riyadh Airport is leading the industry globally.
Riyadh is serving a fast-growing market – the major Riyadh-Jeddah city pair was the fastest growing domestic route in the world in 2024.
Riyadh is serving a fast-growing market – the major Riyadh-Jeddah city pair was the fastest growing domestic route in the world in 2024 and the dynamic local carriers, led by Saudia (SV), added capacity aggressively to address the nation’s growing demand for both business and leisure travel. With GDP growth of 4.4% predicted for 2024 and slightly more for 2025, aviation growth will easily top 10% a year, given the huge range of new investment in tourism development. SV’s seat growth in 2024 has been 9.8% and the airline added six aircraft to their 137 strong fleet.
The Saudi low-cost airlines, flynas and flyadeal (a subsidiary of SV) have also added capacity and have ambitious growth plans ahead: flynas has 280 aircraft on order, including 30 A330s, meanwhile flyadeal announced an order for 51 A320 family aircraft in May.
To win the “Airports” categories so decisively is truly a feather in the cap of all involved with Riyadh Airport and bodes well for the further expansion of aviation in the Kingdom.
The national aim is to achieve 330m passengers travelling into, out of and around the Kingdom by 2030. At some point in 2025, Riyadh Airport will host inaugural flights of the new Saudi flag carrier Riyadh Air, which is based in the city and will provide another carrier to serve the burgeoning Saudi market internationally, as well as sharing in the transit traffic moving over other hubs.
Riyadh King Khalid International Airport has in 2024 delivered a truly superlative performance, a great example to other industry players, both old and new, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. All of us at Cirium salute the Riyadh team’s achievement and will be watching keenly as they address the huge growth challenges ahead.
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