JEDDAH, 8 July 2005 — Yemenia (Yemen Airways) is planning to expand its services to overseas destinations from Sanaa in view of growing demand from Saudi Arabia’s travelers.
To begin with, the airline, which has been operating to the Kingdom for over 40 years, is planning to introduce connecting flights from Sanaa to the southern Indian city of Cochin. “This is due to the great demand that exists on our airline from the Kingdom’s passengers, especially Indian expatriates, heading Kerala,” Abdulrahman M. Almutwakil, Yemenia’s regional manager for Saudi Arabia and Yemen, told reporters on the sidelines of a travel agents party the airline hosted at Al Salam Holiday Inn Hotel on Wednesday.
“We’ll first introduce direct flights to Cochin from Sanaa enabling quick connections for passengers traveling from the Kingdom, as we find that Kerala-bound passengers from here are taking our flights to Bombay,” he said. “We are also introducing typical Kerala food on our Bombay flights,” he added.
Yemen’s national airline operates weekly four flights from Jeddah to Bombay via Sanaa and two others from Riyadh. From Sanaa, the airline flies to 32 destinations worldwide. “Bombay is one of our most popular destinations for the Kingdom’s Indian expatriate community,” Almutwakil said. The airline’s other popular destinations include Khartoum, Asmara, Jakarta, Addis Ababa and Kuala Lumpur. “We discontinued flying to Dammam after the Gulf war,” he added.
“The Kingdom has remained one of the major revenue earning destinations for the airline,” he said, adding that Yemen Holidays has been offering attractive packages for vacationers to visit tourist places in Yemen. It also offers holiday programs for destinations including Istanbul, Dubai, Rome and Kuala Lumpur.
Yemenia, which is headed by Chairman and CEO Capt. Abdulkhalik Al-Kadi, has taken delivery of the first two Airbus A330-200s, becoming a new operator of the type.
Each of Yemenia’s A330-200s seats 277 passengers in a first and economy layout. The aircraft are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 700s. “We’re delighted to be modernizing our fleet with Airbus aircraft and look forward to the improvements in economy and passenger comfort that it will bring,” he said, adding that Yemen’s national airline, like all other world national airlines, is playing a key role in contributing to the country’s business and tourism growth.
“There has been a tremendous growth in the number of businessmen, vacationers and tourists traveling from the Kingdom to Yemen, and through Sanaa to various world destinations, especially in the past five years and much more so after the recent border accord between the Kingdom and Yemen.”