Azernews.Az

By Rasana Gasimova

The Saudi national air carrier, Flynas, will start regular direct flights from Riyadh to Baku, Trend reported referring to the company.

Riyadh-Baku flights will be carried out once a week throughout the year. The company will start operating flights in October 2, 2019.

The Flynas company was established in 2007. It operates 1200 flights a week in 17 domestic and 53 international destinations. The company’s airline fleet consists of the newest planes (Airbus A320). Recently, Flynas announced launching direct flights to the cities of Lucknow and Calicut (presently Kozhikode) in India. The company intends to launch direct flights to Cyprus and Albania in the nearest future.

Note that Saudi Arabia facilitates to increase flow of Arab tourists to Azerbaijan. As an example, Confederation of Tourism Associations in Saudi Arabia is developing a roadmap that stimulates the attraction of Arab tourists to Azerbaijan. Roadmap is designed for five years. All aspects of the cooperation of the parties will be coordinated with the government represented by the State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan. Additionally, the Arab side will ensure an annual increase in investment in the country at a level of at least five percent.

It should be noted that since February 2016, Azerbaijan has simplified the procedure for obtaining visas for citizens of Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Persian Gulf.

In 2016, the number of tourists from Saudi Arabia who visited Azerbaijan was 7,500, in 2017 - 33,300, in 2018 - 73,000.

Within 11 months of 2018, the largest increase among those who arrived was observed among the citizens of the countries of the Persian Gulf (with the exception of the UAE and Iran). Compared to January-November 2017, the number of Saudi Arabian citizens who arrived in the country increased by 2.2 times, Bahrain citizens - 2.1 times, Kuwait - 1.9 times, Qatar - 1.6 times, Iraq - 10.4 percent, Oman - 8.5 percent.

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