Riyadh Air eyes ‘game-changing’ first class suites

While Riyadh Air is counting down to its highly-anticipated launch in the coming months, CEO Tony Douglas is looking well ahead to the next wave of the airline’s ambitious flight plan – and the wave after that.

First up will be flights to as-yet-undisclosed cities in Europe and the Gulf region on Boeing 787s decked out in eye-catching liveries of purple and lavender.

Riyadh Air will finally take flight in the coming months.

Those jets will feature private business class suites crowned by four over-sized Business Elite berths with larger video screens, companion dining and a double bed.

The Saudi Arabian carrier has as many as 72 Dreamliners on the books with a target of “one delivery a month” across 2026, CEO Tony Douglas tells Executive Traveller.

“Then we get up to two deliveries a month, and by the time we get into 2028, we’re into some months of three deliveries a month.”

Riyadh Air's 787 Business Elite suite.

That swift cadence will fuel Riyadh Air’s expansion to “a hundred international destinations within the first five years” and overlap with the arrival of the Airbus A350-1000, with 25 on order.

The A350 will become the airline’s long-range flagship and is expected to launch what Douglas has described as “a game-changing first class product.”

“As you can probably imagine, we’ve thought long and hard about first class,” Douglas says, adding that “we are exploring a first class product on the A350-1000 for two reasons.”

The jet’s reach of up to 16,000km will make possible non-stop flights to almost every desired destination on Riyadh Air’s network map, including Australia and New Zealand, “and the size of the airframe allows us to do that in an economically sustainable way.”

“So on the 350-1000, there is a reasonably solid chance that we will introduce a unique first class product.”

Also read: Riyadh Air’s stunning new 787 business class