Saudia Airlines Announces Plan to Purchase 100 Lilium Jets, Collaborates to Bring Electric Air Mobility to Saudi Arabia

Saudia Air­lines announced this week a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lil­i­um to bring elec­tric air mobil­i­ty to Sau­di Ara­bia, while sign­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) to pur­chase 100 Jets, as well as to sup­port cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ser­vices across the area, reports a press release. Saudia is the first air­line in the MENA region to invest in sus­tain­able air mobil­i­ty.

Saudia intends to cre­ate “new elec­tric point-to-point con­nec­tions as well as seam­less feed­er con­nec­tions to hubs for busi­ness class guests.” The Lil­i­um Jet’s flex­i­ble cab­in archi­tec­ture is well suit­ed to the needs of Saudi’s pre­mi­um avi­a­tion mar­ket. The Air­line cur­rent­ly serves a net­work of more than 100 domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions. This col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to trans­form the Kingdom’s domes­tic air trans­port sec­tor.

Cap­tain Ibrahim S. Koshy (image: Saudia)

Cap­tain Ibrahim S. Koshy, CEO of Saudia, com­ment­ed, “Build­ing on our com­mit­ment to be a sus­tain­able lead­ing air­line, we con­sid­er our eVTOL net­work project with Lil­i­um to be an under­tak­ing of great sig­nif­i­cance for the Kingdom’s avi­a­tion indus­try.”

He con­tin­ued, “Saudia intends to meet a grow­ing demand for region­al air mobil­i­ty and offer our val­ued guests a supe­ri­or on-board expe­ri­ence. The poten­tial for such an air­borne tran­sit net­work is lim­it­less”.  

Alexan­der Asseily, Vice Chair­man of Lil­i­um, added, “We are thrilled to work with inno­v­a­tive part­ners for whom sus­tain­abil­i­ty is a pri­or­i­ty. This part­ner­ship with Saudia, our first in the Mid­dle East, is an excit­ing devel­op­ment.”

The release explains, “The pro­posed arrange­ment between Saudia and Lil­i­um is sub­ject to the par­ties com­plet­ing a fea­si­bil­i­ty assess­ment, agree­ing to com­mer­cial terms, and enter­ing into defin­i­tive agree­ments with respect there­to and sat­is­fac­tion of cer­tain con­di­tions.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://lilium.com/

https://www.saudia.com/

(top pic: Lil­i­um)