Leading airline British Midland International (bmi) is celebrating the fifth anniversary of its services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Since the launch of services in September 2005, over 400,000 customers have enjoyed bmi’s popular service, and, five years on, the routes continue to grow in popularity.

In September 2005, bmi became the only British airline to offer a direct link between the UK and Saudi Arabia with a three times weekly service between London Heathrow and Riyadh. Following the overwhelming success of the route, services between London Heathrow and Jeddah were inaugurated in May 2006, followed by London Heathrow-Dammam services in March 2008.

Now operating daily to Riyadh and three times per week to both Jeddah and Dammam on a wide-bodied Airbus A330 aircraft, exceptional connectivity at bmi’s main hub airport, London Heathrow, offers domestic and global destinations through bmi and its Star Alliance partners.

Joerg Hennemann, Chief Commercial Officer, bmi, commented:

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Great Britain have close trading relationships and I am very proud that we have served the Kingdom’s major centres of trade and industry with our unique and stylish service for five years. This is a great milestone for us. I thank the Kingdom for its continued support of our routes. We look forward to many more successful years of flights to Saudi Arabia and serving the travelling needs of Britons and Saudis.”

Business Class customers to and from Saudi Arabia benefit from lie-flat seats with up to 203cm of legroom, freshly prepared Arabic and international cuisine from a fully qualified onboard chef and in-flight entertainment on a 38cm seat back mounted screen with noise-cancelling headphones. Economy customers also enjoy Arabic or international cuisine, a generous 81cm seat pitch and in-flight entertainment with individual seat mounted screens. Arabic-speaking flight attendants are on hand to attend to customers’ needs.