Sama Airlines announces Mumbai as its first destination in India

The first flight will be on Wednesday 12 Nov 2008 from Dammam to Mumbai, with three flights per week on Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.

Mr. Andrew Cowen, Sama Chief Executive Officer said:

"The addition of Mumbai as Sama's first destination in India and the eleventh international destination overall, is a part of our strategy to meet the huge demand for low fares travel between Saudi Arabia and India. Launch of Mumbai takes Sama's international services to 80% of our total flying establishing a pathway for Sama towards a profitable future. I am also proud to announce this new route at the same time as Sama reached the milestone of 1.5 million passengers flown on Sama, demonstrating without doubt the demand for low fares travel in the region".

GACA statistics show that the number of travellers between Saudi Arabia and India in 2006 was more than 1.2 million travellers.

Mumbai is the business capital of India, and considered as India's gateway to many domestic and international destinations.

Samer Atawi, Sama's Chief Commercial Officer, said: "We are pleased to be starting our services to India, being one of the most important destinations outside the Middle East. We are looking forward to supporting improved tourism and business relations between the two countries. There are many Saudi students in India and as many as 1.6 million Indians living and working in Saudi Arabia all looking for low fares travel between our two countries for work, visit, and Umrah purposes.

Sama's international destinations increase to eleven (Abu-Dhabi, Sharjah, Amman, Damascus, Latakia, Aleppo, Beirut, Alexandria, Sharm El-Sheikh, Asiut, and Mumbai) departing from the international airports at Dammam, Riyadh, and Jeddah.