Saudi Arabia Airlines has signed deals that include agreements on the privatization of the carriers’ core aviations business, the establishment of a company to handle ground services at all Saudi airports, and the financing of new aircrafts for the company’s fleet. “The typical background to privatization is that either the government can better spend its money elsewhere or that it needs funds for a particular reason,” aviation analyst David Bentley told The Media Line. “That doesn’t seem to apply to many airlines in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, which has almost guaranteed income streams and repeating markets i.e. the Hajj,” he said referring to the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, located in western Saudi Arabia. While many of the more famous regional airlines were established in the last 20 years to boost their national economies, Saudi Arabian Airlines began running in 1945, when then United States President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, offered a single twin-engine DC-3 (Dakota) to King Abdul Aziz.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=28354
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=28354