The aircraft was quickly put into service to transport passengers and mail between the country’s three main cities — Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran.

By the end of 1945, an additional four DC-3 aircraft had been purchased. And under the aegis of the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Saudi Arabian Airlines was formed in September 1946. A month later, the first international flight took off for Jerusalem, returning via Beirut carrying pilgrims bound for Makkah. By the end of the year, the first overseas office was taking bookings in Cairo. The airline quickly expanded in the 1950s and finally in 1962 Saudi Arabian Airlines bought its first jet. The following year, the government airline finally became completely independent.

But that is history and much before Arab News was born in 1975. It was thereafter that the newspaper covered every development in the aviation sector in the interest of its readers.

In 1980, a five-year development plan was announced that placed emphasis on upgrading service and ensuring a controlled expansion of about 30 percent more passengers carried each year. The plan made provision for ordering new wide-bodied aircraft — eight Boeing 747-100s, two 747-SPs, and 11 Airbus A300-600s.

In 1985, which marked the end of the five-year-plan, an additional provision was made for the purchase of ten Boeing 747-300s, five of which entered service that year. The fleet by then had grown to 104, mostly modern jetliners and the total number of passengers carried had increased by more than threefold to a stable 10.8 million in 1985. Of these, about seven million were carried on domestic routes, a number significantly lower than that of the record-breaking previous year when the total stood at 11.34 million passengers. The year 1985 was also the carrier’s 40th anniversary year.

In the 1980s, Saudi Arabian Airlines began offering in-flight catering and also added a business class to its services, which was well covered by Arab News. Also found in the newspaper’s pages was the national carrier’s commencement of flights to the United States for the first time, mainly Orlando and Washington DC, in the 1990s. The airline also underwent an image change consisting of new uniforms for the flight attendants and new colors. In 2005, the airline carried 16 million passengers for the first time, which was also reported by Arab News. Currently, Saudi Arabian Airlines has express ticketing and check-in, making it even faster for passengers to go where they need to go. The airline today serves 76 destinations from its main hub, King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah with a fleet of 126 aircraft.

As Saudi Arabian Airlines depended on other countries for labor, in the 1990s it intensified its training program to ensure a supply of Saudi workers and pilots. At the time, all of the female flight attendants were foreigners, while the other half of the cabin crew was Saudi, as were three-quarters of the technical staff.

In 1994, in the wake of the Gulf War, US President Bill Clinton announced a $6 billion order was forthcoming from Saudi Arabian Airlines, and all of it would be for American aircraft. The next year, the carrier ordered 23 Boeing 777s and five Boeing 747 jumbo jets, as well as four MD-11 aircraft and 29 MD-90 built by McDonnell Douglas. The latter aircraft featured the Honeywell Pegasus advanced flight management system, making Saudi Arabian Airlines the launch customer for these avionics. Although oil forecasts were better than expected, the country carried a budget deficit and Gulf War debt at that time.

To provide extra capacity without further taxing its capital resources, in early 1997 the company leased four Boeing 747 aircraft from an Icelandic firm. Later that year, it was reported that J.P. Morgan would be issued a seven-year $4.33 billion syndicated loan to facilitate its first payments on the 61-aircraft order it made in 1995.

Many national airlines in the Middle East struggled in the 1990s, prompting a call for an “open skies” policy among regional carriers. Jordan’s Prince Faisal Bin Al-Hussein challenged the efficacy of major carriers serving such short routes with jumbo jets that were operated far short of their full capacity. The Kingdom implored that developing a regional network in the area would actually create more business for the large state airlines in the long run. Arab-Israeli tension remained a volatile barrier to the type of regional cooperation the Kingdom was seeking.

In the spring of 1998, the airline announced a shift in the culture of the airline intended to smooth the way toward privatization. New company colors were part of the scheme. The carrier was expanding its cargo operations at the same time.

Thus, the carrier made a dramatic progress since its humble beginning in 1945 with a single DC-3, finally becoming one of the world’s great modern carriers. The carrier has been contributing to the country’s training and development of manpower and skills and continuing development and repeated successes that can be traced to corporate dedication to the highest level of passenger service and to efficient use of state-of-the-art civil aviation technology.

Being the national airline of the Kingdom and the largest in the Middle East, it flies 12 billion passengers per year. It has also been playing a pivotal role in transporting Haj pilgrims from many countries.

Keeping pace with the growing number of visitors, both religious and business, Saudi Arabia’s airports are also being expanded and new ones created. The Kingdom’s first privately owned airport will replace the existing Prince Mohammad bin Abdul Aziz Airport in Madinah by 2014. Arab News, which featured this in March, quoted Alaa Samman, general manager of business development for domestic airports at the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) as saying that an international tender would be issued in May. The final contract is likely to be awarded to the successful bidder by the end of the year or the beginning of 2011. “The actual work on the airport will start one year after the contract is awarded. It will take at least two years to complete,” Samman said. The airport will have a capacity of eight million passengers per year and cost SR7-8 billion.

This development comes at a time when the increasing role of the private sector in the Kingdom’s aviation sector is being repeatedly emphasized by Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation. As a result, a number of representatives from the private sector are now part of the GACA, an independent state agency set up to oversee a liberalization of the Kingdom’s aviation sector including licensing new airline operations and development of the airports.

According to Arab News reports attributed to Prince Sultan, the private sector should take advantage of the flexibility provided by the new civil aviation law. This allows for the entry of new Saudi airlines to compete with the national carrier on domestic routes and for involvement of the private sector in developing the country’s 27 domestic and international airports.

Arab News, which has been regularly focusing on the Kingdom’s aviation developments, also reported that new development projects supported by the private sector at King Abdul Aziz International Airport (KAIA) in Jeddah would create at least 34,000 jobs. The new projects, which are part of GACA’s strategy to transform domestic and international airports into airport cities, will include five-star hotels, shopping malls, recreation centers, tourist facilities, exhibition centers and aviation-related factories. The GACA has allocated two sites measuring a total area of 2.4 million square meters in the south and east of KAIA for investment.  It has already completed studies on the airport projects and short-listed a number of international companies to implement them. Prospective bidders have until May 31 to present their offers.

The GACA has approved an expansion plan for King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, which will see the first phase of work increase the airport’s annual capacity to 25 million passengers. The project includes developing the airport commercially. It will also improve services to passengers and create more jobs for Saudis, according to Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

The Kingdom’s three main airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam are to be turned into airport cities. “We have a lot of interest from airport operators and developers throughout the world; we have also contracted world-class operators from Frankfurt airport, Fraport, and Singapore Airport to support the operation and further development of international gateway airport in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. They will work with local management teams for six years,” GACA President Abdullah Noor Rahimi said. Plans include providing huge commercial offices, malls, hotels, conference halls and service agencies to be established inside the airport. Each airport will be a separate city where people can live, shop, study and attend international conferences, in addition to enjoying many other services. As well as the new airport cities, the Kingdom’s new economic cities are expected to be a catalyst to boost air travel to the country.

Accessibility is vital for these cities, and the size of the Kingdom means that surface transport is not a viable option for business travelers seeking to invest in new cities. “Therefore, we are upgrading or contracting for the establishment of airports that will serve each of the economic cities,” Rahimi said.

Arab News also reported in its Jan. 6, 2004 issue that foreign airlines would be allowed to operate Haj flights to Madinah for the first time during that year and Haj carriers from some countries have been landing there since then. Previously, pilgrims from abroad landed at airports in Riyadh or Jeddah and traveled to Makkah and Madinah overland. Makkah has no airport. The opening of Madinah airport for foreign Haj flights was meant to ease pressure on Jeddah’s airport. The airport’s Haj Terminal, capable of serving more than a million pilgrims at a time, has been handling more than 300 flights a day during the peak Haj season.

It was on Jan. 24, 2007 that Arab News reported the first Jeddah airport expansion deal signed by Prince Sultan. The contract was signed with Al-Mabani Company to develop and upgrade aviation facilities of Jeddah’s airport as part of a massive expansion project to increase its annual capacity to 80 million passengers. The 36-month contract covers expansion of the airport’s tarmac and runways in order to increase its annual capacity to 80 million passengers. Its features include a new aircraft parking facility west of the Haj Terminal as well as modernization of ground lights systems and IT infrastructure. The new expansion project has enabled the airport to receive large jumbo jets, including the A380, the 555-seat Airbus. Construction of two new terminals and renovation of the existing South Terminal, a new concourse with 25 gates three connector buildings and an extensive upgrade of landside and airside infrastructure facilities also form part of the expansion plan.

Even as these developments were going on, the aviation industry made yet another significant development - that the industry was no longer a male bastion. Arab News reported in its issue of Jan. 12, 2007 that Capt. Hanadi Zakariya Hindi, the first Saudi woman pilot would start flying one of the jets belonging to Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, founder and chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, following her completion of an advance pilot proficiency training program. This made the 26-year-old woman the first accredited female Saudi pilot. The woman, now 29, has been literally flying high, although she needs to be driven by a male chauffeur to the airport.