Qatar Airways CEO Holds Talks with Saudi Prince

Qatar Airways has expressed an interest in launching an airline registered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The airline’s Chief Executive Officer, Akbar Al Baker, recently held talks with His Royal Highness Prince Fahad bin Abdullah Al Saud to discuss opportunities arising from the Kingdom’s newly-launched aviation liberalisation policy. With a market that is underserved and keen for greater domestic air services, Al Baker said the Kingdom represented a key growth area. However, during the meeting, he expressed particular concern over what he claims are excessive fuel charges in the Kingdom, as well as the government’s policy of controlling domestic air fares which, he said, were not in the interests of the travelling public nor airline operators. Al Baker said such factors were detrimental to airlines as fuel represented a major cost of operations. Capping airfares, he said will never allow any airline to operate commercially in the Kingdom, citing the demise of domestic carrier Sama Airlines due to such measures. He stressed that other airlines operating domestic flights within Saudi Arabia were facing the same problem of rising costs, pointing out these needed to be seriously addressed. Al Baker said Qatar Airways was keen to invest in the Saudi domestic aviation market, but this was dependent on a fundamental rethink by the government of certain factors which needed to be tackled. Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 15 years of operation, currently operating a modern fleet of 109 aircraft to 117 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America from its Doha hub.d