Riyadh: flynas, the national air carrier and the leading low-cost airline in the Middle East and the world, reported record results for its performance in 2023 compared to the previous year 2022, with a historic increase in the number of passengers to more than 11.1 million passengers, growing more than 28%.

The leading LCC has taken delivery of 19 new aircraft during 2023, upscaling fleet size to 64 aircraft, an increase of more than 35%, which enabled it to move forward with implementing its strategic plan for growth and expansion under the slogan "We Connect the World to the Kingdom."

Consequently, flynas launched 57 new destinations and routes to 10 countries during the year, inaugurated its fourth operations base at Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah, and increased seat capacity by 22% for domestic and international flights.

On this occasion, Bander Almohanna, flynas CEO and Managing Director said: "We are proud of flynas' performance and results in 2023, which reflect the strength of our business model, the distinguished effort made by our team, and the effectiveness of our strategic plan for growth and expansion.""Our continued investments to increase the fleet size and destinations network have contributed to enhancing our leading regional and global position and to advance in the Skytrax classification, the most prestigious reference in the aviation industry, to be among the top 4 LCC in the world and the best in the Middle East," Almohanna added.

"The company launched many new initiatives and products that contributed to providing flynas guests with a distinctive travel experience and options, the first of their kind in the Kingdom. flynas will keep providing innovative solutions and technologies that are reflected in the passengers' experience as the company is moving steadily to achieve its strategic goals, in parallel with the objectives of the Pilgrims Experience Program (PEP) to facilitate access to the Two Holy Mosques and the National Civil Aviation Strategy to enable national air carriers to contribute to connecting KSA with 250 International destinations and to accommodate 330 million passengers and to host 100 million tourists yearly by 2030," Almohanna stressed.

"Thanks to our distinguished relationships and the reliability of our work, we have succeeded in doubling the size of our fleet by more than 100% in less than two years. We also signed an agreement with Airbus to purchase 30 new A320neo aircraft as part of a 120-aircraft order with a value exceeding 32 billion riyals and a plan to increase the order to 250 aircraft," he said.

"flynas is determined to pursue its expansion to new markets, with announcements to be made during the first quarter of 2024, as the aviation industry in the Kingdom is experiencing unprecedented development thanks to the prosperity of the Kingdom's economy, with the support of Saudi Vision 2030 programs in various sectors, notably the tourism and travel," Almohanna concluded.

The success of flynas was recognized with many international awards, including Skytrax International Award as the 4th Best LCC worldwide and the Best Low-cost Airline in the Middle East in 2023 for the sixth time in a row. Meanwhile, flynas won the Best Low-cost Airline Award in the Middle East from the World Travel Awards in 2023 for the ninth year in a row.