Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has advanced the launch of its new flight from Tabuk to Cairo from April 15 to March 30 considering the growing demand of passengers traveling on the sector, said Abdulrahman Al-Fahad, spokesman of the airline.

Tabuk would be the sixth station in the Kingdom to operate direct flights to Cairo, after Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Madinah and Abha. “This flight is an addition to Saudia’s operations to Egypt, including Cairo, Alexandria and Sharam El-Sheikh,” Al-Fahad said.

He said Saudia (SV 415) would operate three weekly flights from Tabuk to Cairo on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, leaving at 11:15 from Tabuk to reach in Cairo at 12:00 noon local time. The return flight (SV 416) will leave Cairo at 13:00 to reach in Tabuk at 15:40.

He said the new flight from Tabuk would make more seats available to passengers traveling to Cairo from the Kingdom. “The move comes within the framework of the management’s efforts to make optimum use of the airline’s fleet and meet marketing requirements,” he added.

Last year, the airline transported 1.95 million passengers on board 10,864 flights between the Kingdom and Egypt, registering 12 percent increase in passengers and 25 percent rise in flights compared to the previous year.

Saudia operated 706 additional flights on the sector to transport 230,985 passengers from Egypt to the Kingdom, compared to 351 flights with 115,697 passengers in 2013, registering a 50 percent increase in both flights and passengers.

“We have started daily flights from Abha to Cairo after operating five flights weekly on the sector,” the spokesman said. “We offered 2.26 million seats on flights operating to both sides in 2014 and the figure is expected to reach 2.55 million in 2015,” he added.