Saudi Arabia lets new airline take off

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• The new state-owned airline Riyadh Air has started operations with a flight to London.
• Saudi Arabia wants to expand tourism, trade and logistics and broaden its economy.
• The launch comes despite massive disruptions to air traffic caused by the war between Iran, the USA and Israel.

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Despite the massive disruption to air traffic caused by the war in Iran, Saudi Arabia is allowing a new airline to take off. A plane from the new company Riyadh Air landed in London on Wednesday, as can be seen on the aircraft tracker Flightradar 24.

Despite massive disruptions to air traffic due to the war in Iran, Saudi Arabia is allowing a new airline to take off. A plane from the new airline Riyadh Air landed in London on Wednesday, as can be seen on the aircraft tracker Flightradar 24.

In addition to London, the airline will initially fly from Riyadh to Manchester, Madrid, Cairo and Dubai as well as the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah. Flights to around 100 destinations are then planned in the coming years.

Riyadh Air is the country's second state-owned airline alongside Saudia and is intended to help drive forward the kingdom's reform program known as "Vision 2030". Saudi Arabia wants to increase its importance for tourism, trade and logistics and become less dependent on oil.

Riyadh Air is to help bring more tourists and business people to the country. The country competes in the region primarily with Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Attacks in Gulf states with thousands of missiles and drones

In more than three months of war with Iran, air traffic, trade and tourism in the region have been affected in an unprecedented way. Iran attacked the Gulf states with thousands of missiles, drones and cruise missiles in retaliation for attacks by the USA and Israel. Many flights were canceled and ticket prices rose significantly, which also affected the state-owned airlines of the Emirates and Qatar, for example.

"We all hope, of course, that the conflict will be resolved very, very soon," said Tony Douglas, Managing Director of Riyadh Air, to the Al-Arabiya news channel. However, he added that the foundations for the new airline were "very strong" overall.