Jet Airways, India’s premier full service, international airline, and ‘flynas’, Saudi Arabia’s first budget airline, have entered into an extensive codeshare partnership to enhance connectivity between India and Saudi Arabia.

As part of the agreement, Jet Airways will place its marketing code ‘9W’ on flynas flights between the gateway cities of Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh, thus providing its guests travelling from India the ability to travel in to Saudi Arabia via one point and depart from another. Jet Airways will also be placing its code via Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh to the Saudi Arabian cities of Medina which is the holiest city in Islam, as well as port city of Gizan, the agriculturally rich city of Gassim, the unofficial summer capital city of Taif and the popular tourist destination Abha, thus extending our reach into Saudi Arabia.

In turn, flynas will be able to offer its guests access in to India by placing its marketing code ‘XY’ on Jet Airways’ international flights connecting Jeddah to Mumbai, Riyadh to Mumbai and Delhi as well as Dammam to Mumbai and Delhi. In addition to these international routes, flynas will also place its marketing code on certain destinations on the Jet Airways domestic network, via Mumbai to Delhi, Kochi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Lucknow as well as via Delhi to Bengaluru, Lucknow, Chennai, and Kochi.

Mr. Marnix Fruitema, Executive Vice President – Commercial, Jet Airways, said: “Saudi Arabia is the second largest international travel market to/from India with almost 6 million passengers travelling between both countries annually for religious tourism, business as well as leisure. Our codeshare agreement with flynas reflects our continuing commitment to offer our guests the best possible connections to more and more destinations around the world and we are delighted to partner with flynas to offer guests of both the airlines wider network access and a seamless travel experience across the networks of both carriers.

flynas’ CEO, Mr. Bander Al-Mohanna stated: “This partnership is an important step in-line with flynas’ expansion and development strategy. Through such agreements we aim to offer a continually improved service to our passengers by adding more travel routes and expanding our reach regionally and internationally, in particular to key markets such as India. We are certain this partnership will support our efforts and enable us to upscale the quality and convenience required to meet and even surpass our passengers’ demands and expectations.”