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A Royal Jordanian Airbus A321 liveried in “Retro Alia” special colors.
On the subject of which destinations on his carrier’s route map are the most profitable, Royal Jordanian CEO Samer Majali does not equivocate: “Those difficult ones. The ones nobody else flies to.”
The word “difficult” could be used to sum up much of Royal Jordanian’s challenges. European and North American travelers tend to look on the Levant region as a homogenous whole, unaware of the reality that trouble in one sub-region—North Africa, for example—does not necessarily affect the nation of Jordan. Nonetheless, as Majali is quick to point out, whenever any geopolitical problem flares up in the Middle East, the airline’s ticket sales take a dip.
Indeed, Majali has pointed out over the years that Jordan is something of an oasis of calm in the often-turbulent region.
Royal Jordanian’s rigorous risk assessments, both internal and by external consultants, allow it to operate in areas others may fear to tread, such as Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya. The airline is also scaling up its services into neighboring Syria as that country slowly recovers from a long civil war that ultimately saw the Assad regime ousted in December 2024. Royal Jordanian has a twice-daily service to both Damascus and Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo.
Traditionally, Jordan-Syria flights have attracted strong traffic. Demand for transport between the two nations is such that, in addition to its daily routes, Royal Jordanian operates a bus service, complete with flight number, between the capital cities of Amman and Damascus. This, Majali says, is partly because minimal navaids at Damascus (and Aleppo) mean that Royal Jordanian can only operate there in daylight with good visibility. “So, the bus supplements that,” he says.
Majali says that Royal Jordanian aims to serve all primary and secondary destinations throughout the Levant, with the target of providing at least double-daily frequencies “and in many cases, we fly more.” In Iraq, for example, “We have multiple daily services to Baghdad and Erbil and relatively high frequencies to Sulaymaniyah and Basra.” Services to Mosul and Najaf are also under consideration.
Further afield, Royal Jordanian is also increasing its operations to Western Europe, operating into multiple destinations in France, Germany, Spain and the UK.
FLEET GROWTH
This expansion is taking place in tandem with a significant increase and modernization of Royal Jordanian’s fleet.
Majali recognized that the fleet needed to grow from its sub-optimal size of 25 aircraft when he took on the role of CEO in 2021. He quickly moved to replace almost the entire narrowbody and regional jet components. The original narrowbody fleet of around 15 Airbus A320ceos is being replaced with 20 A320/321neos, no fewer than 12 of which arrived in 2025. Similarly, a sub-fleet of four Embraer E170s and E195s has been replaced and supplemented by eight E195 E2s.
The new E195 E2s have over the past year been employed on some significantly longer sectors than would normally be expected of a small narrowbody jet—routes out of Amman to Amsterdam and Madrid, for example, each exceeding five hours.
This, Majali says, was partly a matter of necessity, with the E2s stepping in to fill gaps in the inventory caused by late delivery of some of the A320neo-family aircraft.
Additionally, it was found useful, given the ongoing problems caused by the Pratt & Whitney GTF engines powering the Embraers, to dispatch them on longer European sectors, both to keep the aircraft cycles down and to give them flying time away from the hot, dusty conditions common to the Middle East.
However, Royal Jordanian CCO Karim Makhlouf said at the Dubai Air Show in November that the E2s were showing a 99.7% dispatch reliability and that it had been around nine months since the Embraer fleet had its last aircraft on ground incident.
The airline’s long-haul fleet is also being overhauled. Seven Boeing 787-8s are being given a cabin refurbishment and will be supplemented by nine 787-9s—six directly from Boeing, the rest from lessor AerCap—that are scheduled to start arriving in early 2026. “Once we get into double digits [of 787s], we will start removing the -8s,” Majali says, with disposals through 2028-2030.
The net effect of all the new arrivals, he adds, will be that the fleet’s average age will be more than halved, from 9.6 years at the start of 2025 to just four years. In 2024, the airline had 25 aircraft. This number rose to around 33 aircraft by the end of last year and is expected to rise to 41 by 2028. Makhlouf said he was already working on fleet plans out to 2032, and that numbers could rise to as high as 50 to 52 aircraft, but he stressed that this figure was still to be approved.
Majali expects the airline to come out of 2025 with a modest profit margin—no mean feat under its operating circumstances. But the company is building up other interests with the aim of diversifying its revenue streams. It has re-acquired its training center, which will be open to third-party training, increased its shareholding to 51% in the joint catering company it operates with Dubai’s dnata, and is investing “heavily” into its cargo warehouse facilities. It is also considering setting up a hangar for unscheduled maintenance activities.
PLOTTING A RETURN
Meanwhile, Syrian Arab Airlines (SyrianAir) is one of the oldest Arab carriers and part of a cluster of airlines from that region created shortly after the end of World War II. For the past 15 years it has languished in near-obscurity. General manager Samih Ourabi hopes to remedy that situation, despite multiple challenges, primary of which is removing the lingering effects of Western sanctions. Both the US and the European Union (EU) lifted longstanding sanctions previously imposed on the Assad regime last year, but there are still lingering problems, Ourabi says, citing one example: “I have an engine at Lufthansa Technik. It has been there for 10 years. I visited them and they were happy; [but] then the legal guys were worried,” demanding formal documentation for the engine to be returned to the airline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, SyrianAir has considerable debts and is financially hamstrung by money that remains frozen in foreign accounts. Investors are keen to take a stake in the airline, Ourabi said, speaking at the Arab Air Carriers Organization annual meeting in Rabat, Morocco, in November. However, some of the most intractable problems are bureaucratic, with the airline trying to be readmitted to the international community and attempting to regain third country operator (TCO) status within the EU.
Within Syria, ground infrastructure is improving, he said, with new ILS and VOR systems being installed at both Damascus and Aleppo, and new radar coverage for the entire country scheduled to come online in 2026.
When Ourabi took up his position in spring 2025, SyrianAir had been reduced to a single operational Airbus A320. The fleet has now risen to three A320ceos and a Boeing 737-500 acquired on an ACMI basis. This enlarged fleet has allowed SyrianAir to move from five or six flights a week to eight to 10 flights per day.
“But what we’re looking for now is we’re preparing for next season, since what we started with was just to survive,” Ourabi said.
By late last year, services included destinations such as Dubai, Sharjah, Doha, Kuwait and several cities in Saudi Arabia. Algiers and Moscow are among near-term future points on the route map.
Ourabi said he had signed an MoU to acquire five A320s for arrival in early 2026, although their origins were subject to a non-disclosure agreement. If all goes well, the next step will be to increase the fleet by another 10 aircraft, with A330s likely forming the long-haul component. China is on the list of destinations, with cargo playing a significant role in building revenues.
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