The new airline Riyadh Air is expected to be launched in 2025. Company boss Tony Douglas has now made it clear that the focus will initially be on traffic to/from Saudi Arabia. It also means that Riyadh Air will initially not aggressively compete with rivals such as Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Emirates Airline.

The latter has been speculated since the plans became known and also "fueled" by official reports from Saudi Arabia. Of course, it is not completely off the table that one would like to set up a large hub in Riyadh, where passengers from all over the world should change trains, but not in the short term. In the first phase, the planned carrier will focus on transporting as many travelers as possible to/from Saudi Arabia. The expansion into a hub carrier, which will take on the competitors from the region mentioned in the previous paragraph, could then follow later.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Tony Douglas, formerly at the helm of Etihad Airways, said his first goal would be to fly travelers to/from Saudi Arabia. The concentration on these traffics is in line with the development plans of the kingdom. As part of the so-called “Vision 2030”, around 100 billion US dollars are being invested and the aim is also to ensure that around 100 million tourists come to Saudi Arabia every year. The start-up of Riyadh Air is part of these plans.

It is of course intended that the new carrier will sooner or later develop into a competitor for established golf carriers. According to Douglas, the growth plan is "super aggressive" with plans to serve at least 100 destinations from Riyadh by the end of this decade. This will also create opportunities for transfers. They are currently looking for at least 150 narrowbodies and it is said that the Boeing 737-Max should have the best cards. Only at the beginning of this year did it become known that 39 B787s had initially been ordered. Options were also secured for a further 33 copies. The target fleet should consist of 300 to 400 machines of various sizes.