Riyadh Air Has Set Eyes on Bangladesh

After shocking the world by announcing the purchase of 72 planes at once, Riyadh Air has now turned its attention to the airspace of Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia’s national flag carrier expressed its desire to operate flights to Bangladesh.

Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh said that recently the President of Saudi Arabia’s Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation, Abdul Aziz Al Duailez and Minister of Saudi Arabia’s Hajj and Umrah, Dr. Tawfiq Bin Fawzan Al Rabiah came to Bangladesh and had a meeting with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.

In this meeting, a bilateral agreement was signed regarding the permission to operate flights from Dhaka to the airports of all Saudi cities along with increasing the number of flights between the two countries. At that time, the Saudi delegation discussed the commencement of Riyadh Air flights and expressed its intention to plan to operate flights to Bangladesh as soon as operations begin. They got a positive response from Bangladesh.

In this regard, the Chairman of Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority Air Vice Marshal Md. Mofidur Rahman said, “We have been informed that an airline from Saudi will operate flights to Bangladesh. However, they did not officially inform CAAB about this.”

According to a source from CAAB, as per the bilateral agreement, Saudi Arabian Airlines operates seven weekly flights from Dhaka to Riyadh, seven to Dammam, seven to Madinah and 14 to Jeddah. If Riyadh Air wants to operate flights to Bangladesh, they will have to share the frequency among these 35 flights.

In this case, Saudi Airlines will have to leave some flights. However, the number of flights between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia is likely to increase in the future. Then Bangladesh’s US-Bangla Airlines and Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air will be able to operate flights without any complications.