Riyadh Air's new cabin design aspires to be 'Audrey Hepburn of the sky'

Riyadh Air has unveiled its first cabin interior designs before starting commercial flights later this year, as it seeks to stand out in a market where Gulf airlines are vying to offer premium seats and luxury experiences.

The Saudi Arabian start-up will have a four-class configuration on its Boeing 787-9 planes featuring business elite, business, premium economy and economy cabins, it said.

The 787 Dreamliner, with capacity for 290 passengers, will feature four seats in business elite, 24 in business, 39 in premium economy and 223 economy-class seats.

The premium-economy seats from Recaro are the same model that Emirates has installed, which "most people would say, and I certainly will acknowledge, is the best premium economy out there", Tony Douglas, chief executive of Riyadh Air, told The National. The Saudi airline is hoping to outdo that with its choice of materials and design.

Riyadh Air's "premium-economy cabin is probably better than most business-class cabins in many European and North American carriers", he said.

"Through the art of design, we tried to bring back that glamorous, elevated proposition: if I were to put a persona to this, I wanted it to be the Audrey Hepburn of the sky, that timeless, glamorous cache of how you present elegance."

The airline worked with London-based industrial studio PriestmanGoode on the design, a process that took 18 months to "elevate" passengers' flying experience with a polished look of glamour, refinement and grace, Mr Douglas said, pointing to highlighting the golden age of aviation with Pan Am flights in the 1960s.

The premium cabins at the front of the plane try to recreate the "joy, glamour, excitement of flying", he added.

Riyadh Air, which is also considering a second wide-body plane order of either Boeing 777X or Airbus A350-1000 models, plans to introduce a first-class cabin on the extra-wide-body jet at a later stage.

"We're in a campaign at the moment to add a third aircraft type to our fleet ... and we'll end up with an extra-widebody," Mr Douglas said. "In the extra-wide-body aircraft, we will have a first-class product that we think will reset the expectation from first-class."

Riyadh Air in March 2023 placed an order for Boeing 787 wide-bodies, with the first of these to be used for its maiden flight this year. In October 2024, the airline ordered Airbus A321 Neo narrow-body planes to be delivered in the second half of 2026.

The airline is installing the Recaro R3 economy-class seat by German aircraft seat-maker Recaro on its 787s and narrow-bodies, Mr Douglas said.

Cabin features

Boasting privacy panels, lie-flat beds, large high-definition screens, mood lighting and high-speed wi-fi, the opulent business cabins are decked in a colour palette of deep purple, gold and veined stone, all designed to attract well-heeled travellers in a competitive Gulf market of industry heavyweights.

The business elite and business seats, organised in a one-two-one configuration, will feature fully flat beds with a length of 78 inches and width of 22.5 inches. Passengers will have more privacy with a 52-inch-high wall and sliding doors along with adjustable privacy dividers between centre seats.

Premium economy seating, in a two-three-two layout, features a seat pitch of 38 inches and width of 19.2 inches. While the economy cabin, in three-three-three, will have seats with a 31-inch pitch and width of 17.2 inches.

The cabins feature some of the largest touchscreens in the air, with 4K Oled technology, including 32-inch monitors in business elite, the airline said.

Riyadh Air loyalty members will have access to Viasat’s free on-board streaming, social scrolling, web browsing and gaming.

The unifying theme of all cabins is a twisting canopy design inspired by traditional Arabic tents that reflect Saudi Arabia's heritage.

Mr Douglas declined to reveal details about amenity kits, food menus and beverages on-board, which will be revealed later.

'Commercially sustainable' configuration

The design aims to make the most of cabin space, an easier task for Riyadh Air as a "no legacy" airline starting from scratch.

"We want to be financially sustainable so this is how you use real estate efficiently, as opposed to wasting a lot of space, which is where historically first-class went badly wrong for many airlines," Mr Douglas said. "It became a charitable act from a financial standpoint."

He declined to provide the size of investment in the cabin interiors and when the first Boeing 787 delivery is expected. The process for delivery is complicated as the aviation supply chain struggles with bottlenecks and delays.

"It certainly wasn't straightforward and it isn't with any of the seat manufacturers or Boeing or Airbus ... we've got seat schedules now," Mr Douglas said. "They're in production as we speak and we've got delivery schedules on these that correspond with the requirements of Boeing to deliver the aircraft to us."

Riyadh Air's focus on premium cabins comes amid an industry-wide belief that travellers will be more willing to pay for premium seats than they did before the Covid pandemic.

However, the decision to forgo first-class cabins on the 787s was a deliberate one, not unlike many airlines removing theirs before the pandemic. "If we had made these big first-class seats of old, we would have lost two or three rows of seats, and that's the difference between profitability and a loss-maker in commercial aviation," Mr Douglas said.

The focus for the start-up airline is sustainable growth as it seeks to connect to 100 destinations by 2030.

"We've literally analysed the economics to within an inch of its life in terms of how this becomes commercially sustainable against the network we deploy it on and what we believe will be the demand is for the three cabin classes we've got," Mr Douglas said. "That's what go us to this layout plan and we think it's commercially efficient."

The number of seats in the premium cabin is "absolutely the right ratio and I think there's going to be huge demand on this because of the size of the market in Saudi Arabia. I joke with my chief commercial officer that he's probably got the easiest job in the world for the first three or four years because everybody will want to fly in that suite, certainly very proud Saudis but many others as well," Mr Douglas said.

The airline, which is owned by the kingdom's Public Investment Fund, is part of Saudi Arabia's broader plan to attract affluent, high-spending tourists, rather than on mass volumes of travellers, according to Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb.

Saudi Arabia plans to become a travel hot spot, ploughing $800 billion in tourism investments to develop the sector and setting a revised target of attracting 150 million visitors by the end of the decade.

Riyadh Air recently received its Air Operator Certificate, took delivery of its first technical spare aircraft, and is set to announce the first of its routes and first flight date in the coming months, it said.