‘Use It, Or Lose It’: Riyadh Air Will Launch This Month As A Private Jet Service To London Heathrow
- Earlier this year, Riyadh Air miraculously managed to acquire a pair of slots at London Heathrow Airport to operate a once-daily service for the winter season. But Boeing aircraft delivery delays mean the airline has been forced to find an inventive way around Heathrow's 'use it or lose it' slot rules.
Riyadh Air, the highly anticipated new startup airline that is being bankrolled by the massively wealthy sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, is expected to launch as a private charter jet service between Riyadh and London Heathrow Airport at the end of October.
This is probably not how Riyadh Air had planned to debut on the international stage, but chief executive Tony Douglas is making the most of a bad situation, saying the private jet service for airline workers and employees of the wealth fund will provide Riyadh Air with invaluable feedback before it welcomes the general public.
Riyadh Air was first announced in early 2023 as an integral part of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious vision to transform the Kingdom’s economy. Even more ambitious was the timeline to get Riyadh Air off the ground – just 24 months from inception to the first commercial flight taking off.
Douglas ordered 72 brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliners as the launch aircraft for Riyadh Air, but the original plan was to get the first of these planes by December 2024. Delivery delays mean that Riyadh Air has yet to get its hands on any of these planes.
In the meantime, however, Riyadh Air has been progressing with plans for its official launch. In June, the airline miraculously managed to acquire a pair of landing and takeoff slots at one of the world’s most capacity-limited airports – London Heathrow.
Getting hold of slots at London Heathrow is no mean feat, especially for a new carrier, and Riyadh Air’s owners would no doubt have been forced to dig very deep to acquire these rights.
The slots are for the start of the aviation industry’s official northern hemisphere winter season on October 26. Riyadh Air flight RX401 is expected to land at Heathrow Terminal 4 at 7:30 am daily, and the return flight departs at 9:30 am as RX402.
There are, however, two problems:
- The first is that Riyadh Air doesn’t have the planes it wanted to operate these flights
- The second, and perhaps the more pertinent problem, is that Heathrow’s slot regulators have a ‘use it, or lose it’ rule. Airlines are required to use their slots at least 80% of the time, and if they don’t, the slots will be revoked and given to someone else.
Riyadh Air will use a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for the service, which was previously owned by Oman Air and which has been used for crew training, certification, and regulatory approvals.
Members of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with Riyadh Air’s employees and their families, will be human guinea pigs of the airline’s service during the first few months, providing feedback before commercial flights commence.
If all goes to plan, Riyadh Air will soon take delivery of one of its new 787 Dreamliners, and tickets will go on sale from December. The airline will initially offer flights between Riyadh King Khalid International Airport and London Heathrow, and Dubai.
Riyadh Air has “super aggressive” expansion plans and intends to serve as many as 100 destinations within just a few years. The airline has also ordered 25 Airbus A350-1000 widebody aircraft with options for double that, and 60 Airbus A321neo single-aisle jets.
