One of the highlights of the Paris Air Show 2023 was Riyadh Air, Saudi Arabia’s grandiose startup airline.
As this was the first major event since the official launch of the company, the airline had its own chalet on the tarmac, the 787 in its new livery in static display, and it promoted a media briefing at the Hôtel de Crillon.
While CEO Tony Douglas set the tone at the briefing, which happened a day before the air show’s official start, Riyadh Air was available for the media throughout the event, trying to set its vision of a new, clean-sheet airline endowed with an unprecedented backing.
Aviacionline sat with the start-up’s Chief Commercial Officer, Vincent Coste, for a brief talk about Riyadh Air’s plans and ambitions.
Aviacionline (AL): Why such an early market campaign [if] you’re going to start flights only in three years time?
Vincent Coste (VC): Because we have many things to announce until our launch — we’ll start flying in the first half of 2025. And we thought after the official announcement of the airline in March, where we displayed our logo, our CEO, etcetera, etcetera, that it was good to follow up with the announcement of our livery, which is quite extraordinary.
We are very proud of it and then we’ll have, over the next two years, a number of news to share with our future flyers. So we [believe] it’s not too early. There is a lot of a lot of other news coming up in the next 24 months.
AL: Commercially, does going so early make a difference or is it more marginal, for your department at least?
VC: It makes a big difference because we are starting to position the brand. We are there across all the markets where we are going to fly because we are going to fly international to up to 100 destinations by 2030. So it’s a very, very rapid growth.
So we want absolutely to start communicating at a very early stage. It takes time to build a brand and, you know, since Riyadh is our brand and Riyadh will be the airline of Vision 2030, [we want] to communicate as early as possible.
AL: You worked before at other Middle Eastern airlines. What difference does it make in bringing experience to the team, for you personally?
VC: On the personal side, after many years, not only in the Middle East but also in other international airlines — and I spent a lot of time with the major European airline — I decided to join the team at Riyadh Air there because it’s a fantastic opportunity to start an airline the right way.
As you know, airlines are very constrained by legacy technology. It’s very old technology and we want to be sure that we have the right digital stack, because this will be a key differentiator for Riyadh.
AL: According to Tony’s briefing, you want to rethink what an airline does. From the commercial side, what does that mean? Of course you’re not going to tell [us] anything now, but what is the vision?
VC: Instead of being an airline with nice digital capabilities, we want to be a digital native company enabling travel. So when you look at the industry, there is a transformation right now going on at the airline industry level towards airlines not only selling strictly tickets, but also selling an ecosystem.
And in our case, since we are part of Vision 2030 and we will serve the Kingdom by attracting more tourism, we want also to offer trips, travel experiences within Saudi Arabia, hence the technology piece that is so important.
AL: As far as the network goes, is there much you could do differently from your Middle East peers or not?
VC: Yes, absolutely — this is also a very important point. Riyadh is the least connected capital of the G20 when it comes to international connectivity, and we are a country of 38 million people.
Our focus will be [bringing] KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ed.] to the world and the world to KSA. So we don’t intend to focus on international to international traffic. Unlike other airlines in the region, we have a very, very strong potential between KSA and the rest of the world.
AL: Tony has mentioned the transition coordination with Saudia in terms of them winding down the Riyadh base and you [coming in] as you grow up. But is the relation to be more complex than this — are you discussing this already with them?
VC: We are at the early stages, since we are in the start-up phase of Riyadh Air. We are in the early stages of our discussions. However, the intent is really to make sure that by working together, we are offering more travel opportunities for people travelling to and from KSA.
So there are great potential synergies when it comes to codesharing and interline, but also making sure that connectivity, luggage, etcetera, is seamless from a guest and traveler perspective.
AL: And still about partnerships, are alliances a thing of the past or would you [consider joining one]?
VC: We are evaluating our approach towards alliances. Again, [it’s a] very early stage. You know that Saudia is partnering with Skyteam already, and we have started engaging with different [partners], so we are assessing what will be the best option for Riyadh Air. So we don’t rule out being part of an alliance, but it’s still an early stage right now.
AL: Riyadh Air’s idea is all about class and quality. However, in Saudi Arabia right now there is an expansion of the low-cost product, [yet] your plans are very expansive. Don’t you think that these two concepts — of very low fares and your big expansion with high-quality service — clash somehow?
VC: When you look at low-cost, [they] are serving markets that are positioned as low-cost. It’s a different type of segment in our case, and that’s why we are starting with widebodies. We are looking at connecting Riyadh to the major G20 capitals of the world.
So high volumes in terms of traffic flow, but also a high premium share on these traffic flows and as we are going to operate economy class, premium economy and business class, we see a great potential. In terms of traffic mix, that [will] differentiate us from the low-costs.
AL: So is it possible to compete with, say, a Wizz Air flight to Rome with 239 seats for €50?
VC: Rome is a G20 capital. There is a segment of the market who will not want to fly on Wizz Air to and from Rome. So we will have a traffic share on this type of market that is different from the low-cost positioning.
And don’t forget that we will be a connecting carrier, which means we will also have passengers coming from all across Saudi Arabia. We are going to connect [passengers] through Riyadh, as an example, [a passenger] which today the low-cost airlines are not capturing because they don’t have a connecting product.
AL: Will Riyadh Air’s 787s reach Latin America — is that in the plan?
VC: We have chosen the 787-9 in line with the network vision we have for the future. Until 2030, the aircraft, as it stands, covers all our network — maybe Latin America. You know, we will disclose a little more on our network in the next interaction. But these are the type of news as you were mentioning earlier that we will start to share in the future.
AL: When we speak in five years from now, what do you expect Riyadh Air to be from your commercial perspective?
VC: I expect Riyadh Air to leapfrog the industry in five years. Precisely because we will adopt technological or digital solutions that the airline [industry] today doesn’t have — because most of the airlines today are working with legacy technology, they are trying to transform themselves. It will take years.
We have a unique opportunity to start. With the vision in mind, from a commercial perspective, both in terms of capacity to display our products and not only airline products, but also in terms of guest experience. The guest experience today is siloed because technology is siloed. If we have the right digital platform, it will be completely seamless, also from a guest experience perspective.
