Flyadeal

Flyadeal is a Saudi airline based at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.

History

2022: A flight with an all-female crew was carried out in Saudi Arabia

In May 2022, the Flyadeal low-cost airline became the first Saudi airline to fly with an all-female crew, which was an important milestone in the empowerment of women in Saudi Arabia. Flight 117 was operated on an Airbus A320 from Riyadh to Jeddah.

The internal flight was operated under the number F3 117. Registered as HZ-FAV, the aircraft was delivered from Toulouse on April 21 and put into operation on April 25, 2022. Most of the crew of seven were Saudi women, with the exception of the captain, who was a foreigner. According to Arabnews, flight No. 117 was piloted by 23-year-old Yara Yang, who is the youngest female pilot in Saudi Arabia. Jan graduated from flight school in the USA in 2019 and began working at Flyadeal a year ago.

Flight F3 117 is an indicator of gender equality that Flyadeal seeks, since the budget carrier employs more than 55 women in all departments, both on board and on the ground, including air operations, ground operations, human resources, marketing, finance, information technology and much more. Since 2020, Flyadeal has also doubled its initiatives, offering employment opportunities to even more Saudi women and organizing intensive training courses for advanced training.

With the flight of an all-female crew, Saudi Arabia has come a long way, especially for women in aviation. The last time women made a breakthrough was in 2019, when Yasmin al-Maymani became the first female co-pilot in Saudi commercial airlines.

As Saudi Arabia tries to rapidly develop the aviation sector to make the Kingdom a global tourist destination, empowering women is a positive line of change. The number of female pilots and flight attendants in the Kingdom has been growing slowly but surely since 2019.^[1]

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