Riyadh Air Launching Flights to Fastest Growing Economy in the World

Riyadh Air (RX) confirmed on July 2, 2026, that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM), Mumbai, will become its debut Indian destination, with daily service using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner starting August 4, according to Live from a Lounge. The launch fulfills a promise Riyadh Air executives have repeated since the airline’s 2023 founding: that India would be one of the carrier’s earliest and most important markets, given the size of the Indian expatriate community in Saudi Arabia and rising business travel between the two countries.

Flight RX697 will depart King Khalid International Airport (RUH), Riyadh, at 14:05 and land in Mumbai at 20:35 local time, while the return service, RX698, leaves Mumbai at 22:05 and arrives in Riyadh at 23:50. Mumbai now becomes the most heavily contested India-Riyadh route in the country, with eight airlines set to operate it once Riyadh Air joins the schedule.

Why Riyadh Air Picked Mumbai Over Delhi

Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas has spent more than a year building the case for India publicly. Leading a company delegation to India in March 2025, Douglas said “India has long been a crucial part of Riyadh Air’s network planning ahead of our operations launch,” pointing to the country’s outbound tourism potential and the depth of Saudi Arabia-India commercial ties.

At the time, the Saudi Tourism Authority was targeting 7.5 million annual Indian visitors by 2030, while the number of Indians traveling to the kingdom had already grown 50 percent in 2023 to more than 1.5 million.

Delhi and Mumbai were both widely tipped as candidates for the airline’s first Indian route. Mumbai’s status as India’s financial capital, combined with its large Gulf-facing expatriate population and existing high-frequency Saudi Arabia connections, ultimately gave it the edge. Riyadh Air has since built out its India relationship further: in June 2026, the airline signed a memorandum of understanding with Air India (AI) covering codeshare and interline arrangements across their Delhi, Mumbai and Riyadh hubs, with Douglas calling India “one of the most important and dynamic aviation markets in the world.

Mumbai-Riyadh Becomes India’s Most Contested Gulf Route

Mumbai-Riyadh already carries the heaviest traffic of any India-Saudi city pair, driven by business travel, tourism, religious pilgrimage and a large volume of visiting-friends-and-relatives passengers. With Riyadh Air’s entry, the route will be served by:

• Air India (AI)
• Akasa Air (QP)
• Flynas (XY)
• IndiGo (6E)
• Saudia (SV)
• Riyadh Air (RX)

That gives Mumbai the highest number of nonstop operators to Riyadh of any Indian city, ahead of Delhi and Hyderabad. Competition on the wider India-Saudi Arabia corridor has intensified through 2026: Saudi low-cost carrier flyadeal (F3) launched its own first-ever India route on July 1, starting daily Riyadh-Hyderabad flights on an Airbus A320neo. flyadeal’s acting CEO Sanjiv Kapoor called Hyderabad “the first step of our planned expansion into India,” signaling that further Indian cities are likely from both Saudi carriers.

A Rapid-Fire Global Expansion Beyond India

Riyadh Air’s Mumbai announcement lands amid one of the fastest network build-outs of any startup airline. The carrier’s first full-service commercial flight, from Riyadh to London Heathrow, launched on June 10, 2026, three weeks ahead of schedule after aircraft deliveries accelerated. Since then, the airline has added routes at a pace of roughly one new market every two weeks:

• Malaga (AGP): three weekly seasonal flights from July 14 through September 8, 2026
• Madrid (MAD): three weekly flights from July 17, 2026
• Kuala Lumpur (KUL): three weekly year-round flights from July 30, 2026, the carrier’s first Southeast Asian destination
• Dhaka (DAC): daily flights from August 7, 2026
• Manchester (MAN): three weekly flights, most recently rescheduled to September 19, 2026 after a two-month delay

Riyadh Air also launched its own freight division, Riyadh Air (RX), branded Riyadh Cargo, on January 21, 2026, using belly-hold capacity on its widebody fleet to support the carrier’s parallel logistics ambitions under Saudi Vision 2030.

Riyadh Air’s Long-Term India Ambitions

Riyadh Air is targeting more than 100 destinations by 2030 as part of its strategy to turn the Saudi capital into a global connecting hub on the model of Emirates’ Dubai or Qatar Airways’ Doha operation. Mumbai gives the airline a foothold in one of the aviation industry’s fastest-growing markets, and India is expected to remain central to that expansion given its scale of outbound travel and the size of the Indian workforce already living in Saudi Arabia.

Delhi and Bengaluru are the most frequently cited candidates for Riyadh Air’s second and third Indian destinations, both offering strong premium-travel demand that matches the airline’s four-cabin Boeing 787-9 product. Any further India announcements will likely follow the same pattern seen with Mumbai: confirmed only once additional Dreamliners join the fleet, since Riyadh Air’s aircraft deliveries, rather than market demand, have so far set the pace of its global rollout.