One significant part of the group’s privatisation plan is to incorporate SAAC,Saudi Arabian Airlines Corporation to become the group’s parent company.
There are no explicit decisions for this yet, but the estimated timeline is by 2020, the report quoted a Saudi official to say.
The group privatisation strategy covers all strategic business units excluding the Royal Fleet.
The plan is to privatise Saudia and Flyadeal together under the group parent company.
Saudi Arabia is also working to privatise all of its airports.
The airport privatisation process was also being pushed to be completed by 2020.
Saudia, also known as Saudi Arabian Airlines is the national carrier airline of Saudi Arabia, based in Jeddah.
The airline's main operational base is at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam are secondary hubs. The new Dammam airport was opened for commercial use on 28 November 1999.
Dhahran International Airport in use until then, has reverted to being used as a military base. The airline is the third largest in the Middle East in terms of revenue, behind Emirates and Qatar Airways.
It operates domestic and international scheduled flights to over 120 destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.
Domestic and international charter flights are operated, mostly during the Ramadan and the Hajj season. Saudia is a member of the Arab Air Carriers Organization and joined the SkyTeam airline alliance on 29 May 2012.
On 8 October 2000, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Saudi Minister of Defense and Aviation, signed a contract to conduct studies for the privatization of Saudi Arabian Airlines.
In preparation for this, the airline was restructured to allow non-core units—including Saudia catering, ground handling services and maintenance as well as the Prince Sultan Flight Academy in Jeddah—to be transformed into commercial units and profit centers.
In April 2005, the Saudi government indicated that the airline may also lose its monopoly on domestic services.
Saudi Arabian Airlines achieved operational profits in 2002, which doubled in 2003, but the profits were primarily due to over one billion riyals on deferred income amortised annually in the income statement, courtesy of the 70 aircraft gifted to the airline by the Saudi government.
In 2004, the airline carried over 15 million passengers and recorded a 14% rise in profits. In April the following year the airline ordered 15 Embraer E-170LR aircraft in a deal worth $400 million.
In 2006, Saudia began the process of dividing itself into Strategic Business Units (SBU); the catering unit was the first to be privatized.In August 2007, Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers approved the conversion of strategic units into companies.
It is planned that ground services, technical services, air cargo and the Prince Sultan Aviation Academy, medical division, as well as the catering unit, will become subsidiaries of a holding company.
The airline reverted to its abbreviated English brand name Saudia used from 1972 to 1996 from Saudi Arabian Airlines,historic name in use until 1971 and reintroduced in 1997 on 29 May 2012; the name was changed to celebrate the company's entry into the SkyTeam airline alliance on that day, and it was a part of a larger rebranding initiative.
Saudia received 64 new jets by the end of 2012,6 from Boeing and 58 from Airbus. Another 8 Boeing 787-9 aircraft started to join the fleet in 2015.
In April 2016, Saudia announced the creation of a low-cost subsidiary, Flyadeal.
The airline was launched as part of Saudia Group's SV2020 Transformation Strategy, which intends to transform the group's units into world-class organisations by 2020.
Flyadeal will serve domestic and regional destinations, beginning flights in mid-2017.
Saudia has codeshare agreements with SkyTeam partners and with the following airlines:
- Oman Air
- Royal Air Maroc
The inflight magazine of Saudia is called Ahlan Wasahlan.
No alcoholic beverages or pork are served on board in accordance with Islamic dietary laws.
Its selected Airbus A330-300 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft are equipped with Wi-Fi and mobile network portability on board. Some aircraft also offer onboard specialized prayer areas.
On 25 September 1959, a Saudia Douglas DC-4/C-54A-5-DO (registration HZ-AAF), performed a belly landing shortly after take-off from the old Jeddah Airport.
The cause of the accident was gust locks not deactivated by the mechanic, followed by a stall. All 67 passengers and 5 crew survived.
On 9 February 1968, a Douglas C-47 (Registration HZ-AAE) was damaged beyond economic repair at an unknown location.
On 10 November 1970, a Douglas DC-3 on a flight from Amman Civil Airport, Jordan to King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was hijacked and diverted to Damascus Airport, Syria.
On 11 July 1972, a Douglas C-47B (Registration HZ-AAK) was damaged beyond economic repair in an accident at Tabuk Airport.
On 19 August 1980, Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar, operating Karachi-Riyadh-Jeddah, was completely destroyed by fire at Riyadh airport with the loss of all 301 people on board due to delays in evacuating the aircraft.
This was the deadliest accident experienced by Saudia until 312 were killed in the loss of Flight 763 over 16 years later.
On 22 December 1980, Saudia Flight 162, a Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar, operating Dhahran to Karachi, experienced an explosive decompression, penetrating the passenger cabin. The hole sucked out two passengers and depressurized the cabin.
On 5 April 1984, a Saudia Lockheed L-1011 TriStar on final approach to Damascus from Jeddah was hijacked by a Syrian national. The hijacker demanded to be taken to Istanbul, Turkey but changed his mind and requested to go to Stockholm, Sweden.
After landing in Istanbul to refuel, the hijacker was arrested after the pilot pushed him out of the emergency exit.
On 12 November 1996, a Saudia Boeing 747-100B, operating flight 763, was involved in the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision.The aircraft was on its way from New Delhi, India, to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia when a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 collided with it over the village of Charkhi Dadri, some miles west of New Delhi.
Flight 763 was carrying 312 people, all of whom, along with 37 more on the Kazakh aircraft, died, for a grand total of 349 fatalities.
The loss of Flight 763 alone remains Saudia's worst accident in terms of fatalities. The accident overall also remains the world's deadliest mid-air collision and the third-deadliest aviation disaster in history, as well as the deadliest one with no survivors.
On 14, October 2000, Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 115,flying from Jeddah to London was hijacked en route by two men who claimed they were armed with explosives.
The hijackers commandeered the Boeing 777-200 to Baghdad, Iraq, where all 90 passengers and 15 crew members were safely released.
The two hijackers, identified as Lieutenant Faisal Naji Hamoud Al-Bilawi and First Lieutenant Ayesh Ali Hussein Al-Fareedi, both Saudi citizens, were arrested and later extradited to Saudi Arabia in 2003.
On 23 August 2001, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, a Boeing 747-300 (Registration HZ-AIO) suffered nose damage as it entered a monsoon drainage ditch while it was being taxied by Maintenance staff from the hangar to the gate before a return flight to Saudi Arabia.
None of the six crew members on board at the time were injured.
On 8 September 2005, a Boeing 747 traveling from Colombo to Jeddah, carrying mostly Sri Lankan nationals to take up employment in the Kingdom, received a false alarm claiming that a bomb had been planted on board.
The aircraft returned to Colombo. During the evacuation, there was a passenger stampede in the wake of which one Sri Lankan woman died, 62 were injured, and 17 were hospitalized.
The aircraft had taken on a load of 420 passengers in Colombo.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka, the probable cause was a Breakdown of timely and effective communication amongst Aerodrome Controller and Ground Handling (SriLankan Airlines) personnel had prevented a timely dispatch of the stepladders to the aircraft to deplane the passengers in a timely manner.
This resulted in the Pilot-In-Command to order an emergency evacuation of the passengers through slides after being alarmed by the bomb threat.
On 25 May 2008, a leased aircraft operating under Saudi Arabian Airlines as Flight SV-806 from Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport, Madinah made an unscheduled landing at Zia International Airport (now Shahjalal International Airport), Dhaka.
During the roll the tower controller reported that he saw a fire on the right hand wing. Upon vacating the runway, the crew received a fire indication for engine number three.
The fire extinguisher was activated and all engines were shut down. The aircraft, a Boeing 747-357, which was damaged beyond repair, was successfully evacuated.
Only minor injuries were incurred.Investigations revealed a fuel leak where the fuel enters the front spar for engine number three.
On 5 January 2014, a leased Boeing 767 operating under Saudia was forced to make an emergency landing at Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz Airport in Medina after landing gear failed to deploy. 29 people were injured in the incident.
On 5 August 2014, a Boeing 747-400 (reg. HZ-AIX) operating as flight 871 from Manila to Riyadh veered off the runway 24 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila while positioning for takeoff. No one on the plane or on ground were injured.
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