Air Arabia-led Saudi carrier launches Dammam flights to three domestic cities

New carrier starts daily services to Riyadh, Jeddah and Medinah from Dammam

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Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
Air Arabia-led Saudi carrier launches Dammam flights to three domestic cities

Dubai: Saudi Arabia’s new national budget carrier, led by an Air Arabia consortium, has started operations from King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, opening with domestic flights to Riyadh, Jeddah and Medinah.

The carrier launched its first flight from Dammam to Riyadh on September 20, marking the start of operations from its new base in the Eastern Province.

It currently operates two daily flights from Dammam to Riyadh and Jeddah, along with one daily service to Medinah.

Three domestic routes to start

The launch gives passengers in the Eastern Province a new low-cost option for travel between Dammam and three of Saudi Arabia’s main domestic destinations.

This step marks an important milestone as the new national budget carrier takes off to the skies for the first time from King Fahd International Airport. The start of operations reflects our commitment to supporting the continued development of the Kingdom’s aviation sector while expanding affordable and reliable air connectivity from the Eastern Province.
Adel Al Ali, Group Chief Executive Officer of Air Arabia

Dammam becomes the carrier’s base

King Fahd International Airport has been selected as the airline’s operating base. The General Authority of Civil Aviation selected the Air Arabia-led consortium in July 2025 following a competition to establish the new carrier.

The consortium comprises Air Arabia Group, Nesma Group and Kun Holding.

The airline received its Air Operator Certificate from GACA last week after completing the required technical and regulatory procedures, clearing it to begin operations from Dammam.

The carrier follows Air Arabia’s low-cost business model and operates Airbus A320 aircraft with 174 seats in a single-class cabin.

Its launch adds a new operator to Saudi Arabia’s domestic aviation market while establishing Dammam as the starting point for the carrier’s network.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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