Saudi airline hails first flight with all-female crew

Officials in Saudi Arabia claimed Saturday that an airline had completed the country’s first flight with an all-female crew, hailing the achievement as a watershed moment for women’s emancipation in the conservative nation.

The flight, which was operated by flyadeal, a budget affiliate of Saudia, flew from Riyadh to Jeddah on the Red Sea coast, according to flyadeal spokesman Emad Iskandarani.

According to Iskandarani, the “bulk” of the seven-person crew were Saudi women, including the first officer, but not the captain, who was a foreign woman.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority, which confirmed flyadeal’s announcement Saturday, has touted expanding roles for women in the aviation sector in recent years.

In 2019, the authority announced the first flight with a female Saudi co-pilot.

Saudi officials are trying to engineer a rapid expansion of the aviation sector that would turn the kingdom into a global travel hub.

Goals include more than tripling annual traffic to 330 million passengers by the end of the decade, drawing $100 billion in investments to the sector by 2030, establishing a new national flag carrier, constructing a new “mega airport” in Riyadh and moving up to five million tonnes of cargo each year.

Yet industry analysts question whether Saudi-based airlines will be able to compete against established regional heavyweights such as Emirates and Qatar Airways.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has supervised reforms such as the repeal of a decades-long ban on women driving and the relaxation of so-called “guardianship” restrictions, which grant men unfettered authority over female relatives.

However, they have occurred in tandem with a crackdown on dissent, which has ensnared some of the very women who are advocating for these changes.