There’s no one easy answer to the question that is “When is the best time to visit India?” The good news is that, honestly, there’s no bad time to visit India. Given its huge size and varied landscapes, India has something to offer every traveler no matter the time of year: exciting festivals, diverse food and flavor profiles, ancient traditions woven seamlessly with modern technology, wildlife experiences, unique and luxurious hotels, cutting-edge fashion and style to inspire your shopping mood boards on Pinterest—the works. The biggest challenge is narrowing down where to go.
Flyadeal CEO Reveals India is ‘On Our Radar’ for 2025
21.11.2024 - 16:57 / skift.com / Gordon Smith / Steven Greenway
India is firmly in the sights of a rapidly expanding Saudi low-cost airline. Flyadeal has ambitious plans to more than double the size of its fleet during the next four years. This will see it transform from a largely domestic airline to one with much greater international connectivity.
Speaking at the Skift Global Forum East in Dubai, flyadeal CEO Steven Greenway confirmed that India is likely to play a key role in the carrier’s cross-border expansion.
“The [Saudi] market is very immature at the moment – that isn’t a criticism, it’s just a fact. We aren’t Western Europe, we’re not North America – there’s a lot of catching up to do,” said the chief executive.
Flyadeal is currently growing at around 10-15% per year – a trajectory that is due to continue until the end of the decade.
When Greenway joined the airline in January, around 80% of flyadeal’s network capacity was domestic. That figure is due to shift closer to 50-50 over the coming years. The airline will continue to grow domestically – likely rising from 19 to 25 Saudi destinations – but “the bulk of the growth” will be international.
Asked if China and India formed part of the expansion plan, the CEO suggested India would play a bigger role. “Less so China, more so India because you have more of a prevalence of worker and religious traffic. The [Indian] subcontinent is certainly something that is on our radar for the next 12 months, particularly India for the sheer market size,” said Greenway.
If realized, flyadeal will follow in the footsteps of rival Saudi budget airline flynas. The privately owned company already serves many of India’s largest cities, including Delhi and Mumbai.
To accommodate the expansion, the flyadeal chief suggested that a widebody plane order may be in the cards.
“We want to go further. There is a massive mandate from the [Saudi] government in terms of bringing pilgrims, worker traffic, and high-volume and low-yield traffic, into the Kingdom. We want to stretch our wings. The real strategy behind it is that we have to go for widebodies to cater to that market.”
Flyadeal’s current fleet is composed of Airbus A320 jets that can carry up to 186 passengers. Larger A321 planes that have 240 seats are due for delivery from 2026. All of the A321s will be based in Riyadh where airport slot restrictions limit how many new flights the airline can add.
The introduction of widebody aircraft could see flyadeal carry more than 400 passengers on each service. If the airline follows the ultra-dense all-economy configuration of Philippine carrier Cebu Pacific, more than 450 passengers could fly on an A330-900. Greenway also noted enhanced cargo capabilities with bigger planes able to transport up to 25 tonnes of air freight.
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