The day after a missile hit the airport where Riyadh Air’s offices are based, the British boss of Saudi Arabia’s new airline wanted to soothe staff fears.
This summer, Riyadh Air’s CEO struck an optimistic tone, despite having delayed a soft launch set for March as missiles crisscrossed the region.
“We would never operate a flight or have people work in a building if we were not confident in its safety,” Chief Executive Tony Douglas wrote in a companywide note earlier this month. The airline’s headquarters remained “open for business as usual,” he said, despite an attack just a couple of miles away that destroyed an aircraft and killed three people, including a pilot at its sister airline. Douglas, in an interview in London in June, said getting new seats for his aircraft in time had been more of a headache than the conflict playing out across the Middle East.
The handful of special flights the airline operated in recent days landed either in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, or at a small airport 200 miles from Riyadh, with passengers ferried on an hourslong ground journey to the capital. The violence has particularly dampened the fortunes of Riyadh Air—which started commercial flights this summer, aiming to be a key part of the kingdom’s long-term economic ambitions. The airline has repeatedly diverted flights and canceled others at the last minute. Some have been placed in holding patterns for as long as two hours while waiting out active threats, tracking data shows. Just months after getting off the ground, the airline has evacuated all aircraft from its home base and has halted almost all flying over the past two weeks. This year was meant to see the launch of a key pillar in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambition for his economy: a high-end airline to transport wealthy tourists. It was also designed to help the country catch up with rivals in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, whose airlines have become dominating forces in global air travel over the past three decades, thanks in part to their convenient location between Europe and Asia. The violence isn’t only rattling Saudi Arabia’s aviation dream, but also putting the likes of Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul carrier, under pressure as Gulf airlines battle to overcome flight restrictions and anxieties about their flights’ proximity to the war in Iran.
The CEO’s next message to staff told most to stay home the following day, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
