Air Arabia to Offer Flights to Yanbu

United Arab Emirates (UAE) low-cost carrier Air Arabia is to further expand its network coverage in Saudi Arabia with a new three times weekly connection to the western city of Yanbu; its sixth destination in the country. The flights will operate every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from November 1.

Yanbu, or Yanbu' al Bahr to give it is full name, is a major Red Sea port in the Al Madinah province of western Saudi Arabia. It is approximately 350 kilometers north of Jeddah and has a population of around 200,000, a large number of which are foreign expatriates, mostly from Asia, but also from the Middle East and Europe.

The Saudi city is currently linked domestically to Jeddah and Riydah; flydubai offers a three times weekly service to Dubai, while Almasria Universal Airlines offers a daily schedule to Cairo. An estimated 1.78 million O&D passengers travelled between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the past year, up 39.0 per cent on the previous 12 month period. Air Arabia currently accounts for a 9.8 per cent share of this traffic, up from 9.5 per cent in the previous period.

"In July this year, Air Arabia started its flights to the City of Gassim in Saudi Arabia and today, we are extremely pleased to introduce our new service between Sharjah and Yanbu, which marks the sixth destination in Saudi Arabia reachable via Air Arabia," AK Nizar, Head of Commercial Department, Air Arabia, confirmed in a statement.