flynas suspends long-haul flights

Saudi Arabia's budget airline, flynas, has suspended long-haul flights because profits on the routes did not meet expectations,” reports Reuters.

Its chief executive, Raja Azmi, said:"We had some issues from a financial standpoint in terms of the profitability of some of the routes. We have taken a stand that we are suspending - not stopping - those routes for the moment and will relook at the whole situation again.”

Aviation analyst Saj Ahmad said about the suspension: “The decision to suspend a string of longer haul flights such as those to Manchester and London by flynas points not just to the difficulty of carving out market share in a heavily contested arena, but also that low cost regional airlines seldom make good long haul low cost airlines.

“One only needs to look at how AirAsia X has struggled as a so-called low cost long haul airline. It is losing money hand over fist and isn't really low cost at all. It has dropped as many routes as it has started and has deferred airplane deliveries to stave off cash burn.”

Ahmad added: “flynas has already copied flydubai with a hybrid business class introduction to its fleet, but the move to long haul routes was always in jeopardy. The intense competition in the GCC is what ultimately forced them to look at new revenue opportunities, but I find it hard to see a situation where they'll restart services on long haul destinations considering the numbers do not work. flynas will probably look back at the GCC market first and examine ways of being more efficient here than dipping its toes in a bigger market where its penetration efforts make almost no positive influence.

“It was a bad move on flynas' part to go long haul - they've taken their eyes off the ball and in the meantime, GCC heavyweights flydubai and Air Arabia will continue consolidate their expanding market share at their expense.”