Bealegured aircraft manufacturer Boeing has been dealt a major blow after losing out to rival Airbus for an order of 60 new single-aisle aircraft to Saudi Arabia’s new luxury airline Riyadh Air.
The airline, which is being bankrolled by the Saudi Arabian government through its Public Investment Fund, confirmed on Wednesday that it had selected Airbus to build out its single-aisle aircraft fleet with Airbus A321neo planes.
Riyadh Air had been in talks with both Boeing and Airbus for its first-ever single-aisle aircraft order and sources had previously claimed that the carrier was close to sealing a deal with Boeing for as many as 150 of the aerospace giant’s best-selling 737MAX planes.
One of the main factors that had been working in Boeing’s favor was the fact that Airbus didn’t have any available delivery slots for its massively popular A321neo aircraft until 2029 at the earliest.
Riyadh Air was created in 2023 as part of a massive plan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and turn Riyadh into a major tourism and business center. The airline has a wildly ambitious plan to launch operations next year when it take delivery of the first of 39 Boeing 787 Dreamliners that it ordered just months after the carrier was founded.
On Wednesday, the airline did not announce when it intends to start taking delivery of its A321neos, simply saying that the order was the “the latest step towards its maiden flight in 2025” and that the order would provide an “optimal fleet mix to fulfill its network ambitions of 100 destinations by 2030.”
Riyadh Air is believed to have selected the A321neo as its single-aisle aircraft of choice months ago, but the deal was only publicly announced during a signing ceremony on the sidelines of the eight Future Investment Initiative conference.
The airline did not provide any details on how it intends to equip with A321neos or what kinds of routes that they might operate.
The A321neo is the largest of the Airbus A320 series of aircraft at 44.51 meters in length, and with the ability to carry as many as 244 passengers in a single cabin configuration.
The standard A321neo has a maximum range of 7,400 km, although Airbus also has longer range variants known as the A321neo LR and A321neo XLR. Across the A321neo family, Airbus has secured 6,700 orders from 90 different operators worldwide.
Last year, Douglas said that Riyadh Air had “super aggressive” growth plans which will initially focus on creating a point-to-point network to drive traffic to and from Riyadh.
Douglas says that the carrier does not intend to go head-to-head with regional airline behemoths like Emirates by targeting low-yield transit passengers and will instead turn its attention to tourists and locals travelling between Riyadh and as many as 100 destinations.
