Saudia invests on home soil

SAUDI Airlines Cargo Company (Saudia) is pumping SR67.6 million (US$18 million) into its Jeddah and Riyadh hubs as magnets for international business.

A total of 31 per cent of the development funds will go to Jeddah, 49 per cent to Riyadh and 20 percent to other domestic stations for expenditure on new ground support equipment, facilities and service agreements.

“Jeddah and Riyadh are key global stations for cargo export, transit and export,” Saudia chairman engineer Khaled Al-Molhem said. “Building on Jeddah’s latest success of the IATA Operational Safety Audit conducted by Quali-Audit requires continuous hard work.”

The investment strategy is aimed at developing Jeddah as the main gateway for cargo flights to and from the African countries, and Riyadh as the main gateway for air cargo to and from the Far East and Europe.

“The building of domestic ground infrastructure stems from the board of directors’ decision to increase fleet strength by 40 per cent to 11 aircraft from May so as to penetrate new global markets with sophisticated services,” Fahad Hammad, Saudia chief executive officer, said.

Saudi Airlines Cargo operates nine freighters and sells the belly-capacity on 125 passenger aircraft from Saudi Arabian Airlines.