DUBAI—Royal Jordanian is seeking to increase its share of transit traffic through Amman's Queen Alia International Airport to make up for a reduction of inbound leisure passengers due to the Israel-Hamas war.
CEO Samer Majali says Jordan has suffered “a huge loss of tourism,” forcing the airline to adapt its network strategy. Royal Jordanian is therefore placing a greater focus on transiting passengers, as well as Umrah pilgrims, to help mitigate the loss in inbound tourist traffic.
“Unfortunately, people view the region as a single homogenous unit,” Majali said at the IATA Annual General Meeting in Dubai. “We’ve tried to compensate by looking for other types of traffic—transiting traffic through Jordan—and at the same time reducing our capacity.”
According to OAG Schedules Analyser data, Royal Jordanian’s capacity in June 2024 is up by 14% year-on-year, although much of the growth is on routes to Saudi Arabia, already the airline’s largest international market.
Targeting religious traffic, overall capacity this month on routes to and from Saudi Arabia amounts to 101,000 seats, marking a rise of 99% compared with June 2023. Capacity on the four services from Amman—to Jeddah, Riyadh, Madinah and Damman—has more than doubled.
“It’s traumatic what has happened [in Gaza] and the fact that it is continuing,” Majali said. “For us, this is the biggest challenge we have today. We’re hoping this tragedy will stop—for the people of Gaza and the region, and so we can get back to business again.”
In March, Royal Jordanian launched two new routes to the UK—flying to London Stansted and Manchester—and will begin serving Paphos, Cyprus, from June 13. Service to Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, is also scheduled to resume in October having first operated between February and April this year.
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