Eurowings has boosted its long-haul capacity from its operating base at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) with the launch of a new route to Saudi Arabia. Earlier this week, the Lufthansa-owned low-cost carrier began serving King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED) in Jeddah on a non-stop basis.

Thrice-weekly flights

Eurowings‘ inaugural flight from Berlin to Jeddah took off on Tuesday evening, representing the first of three weekly flights with Thursday and Saturday seeing the other rotations. According to tracking data from Flightradar24, the maiden flight (EW1158) took off at 21:46 (vs a scheduled departure of 21:20), and, after five hours and 17 minutes in the sky, landed just three minutes behind schedule at 05:03.

Being a low-cost carrier, short turnarounds are the order of the day at Eurowings, and the return flight leaves 90 minutes after its arrival, at 06:30. Wednesday morning’s inaugural inbound sector (EW1159) took to the skies at 06:51, touching down six minutes ahead of schedule at 10:29 local time after five hours and 38 minutes of flight. Berlin Brandenburg Airport CEO Aletta von Massenbach stated:

“We are delighted that Eurowings is launching a second long-haul flight from BER. With Jeddah and Dubai, the airline is flying to two attractive destinations in the Middle East this winter. This strengthens BER as an airport location, promotes the capital region’s connectivity and opens up attractive holiday opportunities for travelers.”

Eurowings’ second Middle Eastern route

As alluded to by von Massenbach, Eurowings’ new route to Jeddah joins its existing route to another major Middle Eastern hub airport, namely

(DXB) in the UAE. According to Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the carrier has been operating flights on this corridor on a daily basis since their resumption on October 27th. Flightradar24 shows that, prior to that, they last operated in March.

As pictured above, Eurowings’ aircraft of choice on its Middle Eastern routes is the Airbus A320neo, which, according to its website, can seat 180 passengers. While the airline currently serves Dubai International Airport, AeroRoutes notes that, next March, it will swap to the neighboring Al Maktoum International (DWC). Commenting on the Middle Eastern boom, Eurowings CEO Jens Bischof stated that:

“By way of the new destination Jeddah and an increase in our successful connection to Dubai, we are further expanding our services at BER and, as Germany’s largest holiday airline, are bringing more Eurowings to the capital. Passengers from Berlin and Brandenburg can now look forward to an even greater choice of attractive direct destinations in the winter flight schedule.”

Stiff competition

Eurowings will face competition from private Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier Flynas, on its new route from Berlin Brandenburg to Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport. While Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that both will operate the same amount of flights from the German capital to the Saudi Arabian city next month (14), Flynas has more seats (2,380 compared to 2,296 for Eurowings).

As for the route to Dubai International Airport, Eurowings’ competition comes from closer to home, in the form of colorfully-liveried German leisure carrier Condor. Both airlines are serving the route on a daily basis this month, but, once again, Eurowings has fewer seats, with 4,920 compared to Condor’s 5,400.