Air France said it will suspend direct flights to Riyadh in Arabia Saudi Arabia, as of 1 February, due to the route’s poor economic performance.In a statement, company, a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, said that direct flights between Paris and Riyadh will now be “ensured by Saudi Arabian Airlines as part of a cooperation agreement.”
"Due to the economic performance and in view of the cooperation with Saudi Arabian Airlines on this route, the Air France-operated flights will be suspended," Air France said.
On 9 January, Air France-KLM, the mother company, said that it, for the first time ever, transported more than 100 million passengers during 2018.
A total of 101ccc 447.000 passengers traveled with one of the three subsidiaries Air France, KLM or Hop!
In December, the Latin American operations performed best, with a traffic increase of 10.7 %, while Middle East connections went down with -1.1%.
Best performers over the whole year were again the Latin American routes (3,45 million passengers in 2018 against 3,17 million in 2017, an increase of 8.7%); Caribbean/Indian Ocean flights (3,73 million passengers in 2018 against 3,71 million passengers, an increase of 0,5%) was the slowest grower. Traffic on Middle East flights increased by some 1,6%.
In spite of the growing numbers, the company estimates it suffered some 300 million Euro in losses as a result of strikes in the spring.
In August, Air France stopped its flights to Tehran after US president Donald Trump unilaterally walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or “nuclear deal” that was made between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations and Germany that lifted part of the sanctions that were imposed as a retaliation against Iran’s suspected uranium enrichment program. Earlier last year, Air France said it would suspend the Tehran route also ‘because of poor economic performance.”
