Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, launched its inaugural service to Riyadh, the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from the Indian financial capital of Mumbai. The new flight was inaugurated by Mr. Saroj K Datta, Executive Director, Jet Airways, in the presence of Jet Airways management and staff at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai.

This is the airline’s second service to Saudi Arabia, complementing the airline’s existing daily Mumbai-Jeddah service. The airline offers four services a week on the Mumbai-Riyadh-Mumbai sectors, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays respectively, aboard a state-of-the-art Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

On Mondays, flight 9W 524 will depart Mumbai at 1725 hrs, and will arrive in Riyadh at 1900 hrs. Flight 9W 523 will depart Riyadh at 2000 hrs, and will arrive in Mumbai at 0225 hrs.

On Tuesdays, flight 9W 524 will depart Mumbai at 2225 hrs, and will arrive in Riyadh at 0001 hrs. Flight 9W 523 will depart Riyadh at 0100 hrs, and will arrive in Mumbai at 0725 hrs.

On Thursdays and Saturdays, flight 9W 524 will depart Mumbai at 1930 hrs, and will arrive in Riyadh at 2105 hrs. Flight 9W 523 will depart Riyadh at 2205 hrs, and will arrive in Mumbai at 0430 hrs.

With the introduction of this new flight, Jet Airways now flies to 8 cities in the Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah and Riyadh.

According to Mr. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO, Jet Airways, “Saudi Arabia is a very important market for Jet Airways on account of the large volume of traffic to the Gulf Kingdom, to and from India, and an important addition to the airline’s growing Gulf network. With the launch of our second daily service to Saudi Arabia, we are confident of further reinforcing our position as among the leading carriers on the Indo-Gulf sector.”

Jet Airways will also launch a new, daily service to Dubai from Hyderabad, its fifth daily service to the Gulf emirate and second from Southern India; as well as its second daily service to Bangkok from Mumbai, effective August 16, 2009; in addition to a new Kochi-Sharjah service, effective September 1, 2009.