Royal Jordanian is a truly boutique airline with some special soft touch points “

In line with the “Explore Jordan” program, Royal Jordanian has announced the launch of direct flights between its national capital Amman to Mumbai and Delhi this year. The Mumbai route will operate with four weekly flights starting on April 17, 2025, and the Delhi route will commence with four weekly flights starting on September 17, 2025. These new routes align with Royal Jordanian’s growth and expansion strategy, focusing on positioning Jordan as a premier tourism destination for the Indian market and enhancing connectivity to over 45 global destinations. At an event in Delhi, Karim Makhlouf, Chief Commercial Officer at Royal Jordanian Airlines, in an interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World adds on more on the plans ahead. Excerpts…

Tell us about your journey with Royal Jordanian?

A: When I joined Royal Jordanian four years ago, we started to change the way we do business. Our new strategy is a bit different to other airlines and is focused primarily on tourism into Jordan because I can tell you clearly that Jordan is a cool destination and it’s very difficult for other destinations to compete with Jordan. While as an airline of course it’s not so easy to compete with everyone, so that’s why tourism into Jordan is it and that’s our new prime focus is to increase the awareness of Jordan which is still relatively niche and urgent is a fundamental new strategy for Royal Jordanian Airlines.

What’s the strategy and offer you have for tourists?

A: We are a 61-year-old airline and we are one of the pioneer airlines in the Gulf and Middle East way before Emirates and Etihad and so on were founded. So one can imagine the change in this strategy was not that easy from a corporate culture level but as an aviation passionate and aviation expert, I strongly believe that this is our only chance to survive. The second strategy and pillar is to develop Amman, the capital of Jordan, not just as the hub for Jordan but for the Levant.

Levant is an area in the Middle East which we call Levant with the surrounding countries of Jordan where you have Syria, Iraq, Palestine, you have even Cyprus. These are markets which lack obviously strong national carriers and here we want to make a difference and position ourselves in this niche which has 140 million population is a very strong hub. So tourism in combination with the Levant strategy will be the fundamental success for growth.

This growth is really big for a small country like Jordan so we are planning to double the number of our passengers from three million passengers which we used to have before COVID to 7.1 million passengers by 2027-28. Two million out of these tourists and hopefully a lot from India and we will as well doubling our fleet to 43 aircraft.We used to have 23 aircraft and we’ll have 43 aircraft by 2027 and as of March we are receiving 20 brand new jets until 2026 mainly the A320neo and the 787-8.

What’s the USP of Royal Jordanian Airlines?

A: Now for a country like Jordan tourism and Royal Jordanian is a very important driver of the GDP. So only Royal Jordanian makes about 5% of the GDP and tourism and as such makes around 20% so you can imagine that the success of Royal Jordanian and of tourism will as well help the country to progress and develop further.

I would say that we are a boutique airline, so we have a very nice product. I’m trying to have a contemporary modern truly Arabian flavor in our product because we are not targeting global to global connectors like other carriers in the region. We are really focused on becoming a truly boutique airline with some special soft touch points.

But our hardware our product will be state of the art. We will have a brand new A320neo business class seats and even the economy seats will be with in-flight entertainment on every seat and with wi-fi on board. Of course we have a meal service and all the other stuff which is needed for a nice experience.

On our brand new 787-9 we will have a new suite as such starting as of December this year and we are using this aircraft right now mainly to the US where we have five destinations in North America. But of course India could be as well a target for the 787 if we successfully develop our tourism strategy as such. These are impressions from our lounge from our product.

How conveniently located is Amman Airport and which all country it connects with?

A: Amman is a very convenient airport as it’s not too big. It’s easy especially for point-to-point travelers so boutique airline as such. I’m promoting the tourism strategy globally since three four years as I joined the airline and we opened a lot of new destinations. In the last couple of years, 15 brand new destinations are opened , be it in Europe, Manchester, London Stansted, Brussels, Stockholm, Milan, Berlin all for tourism .

How much impact is on Jordan due to disturbed neighboring countries?

A: Our priority is tourism into Jordan and the awareness of Jordan globally is relatively low and that’s why the strategy started to work very well until the geopolitical situation happened but this is just an interruption and we strongly believe that tourism will come back very strong this year once the situation gets a bit quiet but talking about politics Jordan was is and will always be like the Switzerland of the Middle East we were never involved in any of these conflicts.

Jordan is even a safe heaven for a lot of Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, so it’s a very-very safe place and as a German, I can tell you Jordan is even sometimes perceived safer than Germany. So this is something which we need to explain as well to the Indian tourists that the geopolitics do not impact.

This is something we want to as well strongly start to promote through the tour operator travel agents and OTAs obviously in the region. As I mentioned, we want to be a very strong hub in the Levant region as you can see is far away from the Gulf guys. Recently, we did our first test flight as Royal Jordanian from Amman to Damascus as one of the first airlines in preparation for non-stop flights to Syria which is of course a very new development as the country just changed their legislation.

How important is India in your network expansion plans?

A: As I said, a lot of new destinations in the last couple of years and in the years to come but for this year we are starting 2025 with Mumbai and New Delhi which will give us a strong push in Asia. In Asia, I count on two main countries of course this is India and China but I think India is for us for now the easier bet and that’s why we are starting with India very strong this year.
When traveling with Royal Jordanian Airlines obviously the main target as I said is to grow tourism and these numbers were not super high in the past year. In a very good year like 2023 we only had around 80,000 Indians who came as tourists to Jordan and this is something which we want to double in the next 12 to 18 months. We believe that the Indian market is huge and of course seeing as well examples like Malaysia like Vietnam like Phuket or Maldives out of India I’m very confident that once the awareness is there the people will start to travel because it’s just a five-hour flight and it’s non-stop.

The traffic between Mumbai and Amman used to be 24,000 per year approximately and we are back to pre-COVID levels even without the non-stop flights so with the non-stop flights I expect to double these numbers. Of course we have a large network of 45 destinations but as I said the priority is tourism and then the rest of the seats we will sell to our network to Europe, US and Canada. But that’s not our priority and that’s different to other airlines operating into India

What is the thought behind the Brand RJ ?
A: Why we developed Explore Jordan under the RJ brand and as a visionary aviation guy I would even say that Explore Jordan will replace RJ in the next couple or five years yeah but step by step the new website is very boutique different than a typical airline website it’s really to create awareness and this awareness should be based on eight or nine pillars.

This is the corporate strategy of Royal Jordanian Airline moving towards a tour operator tourism airline and really growing significantly. It’s very ambitious as we want to double the number of our aircraft but we are very confident that we can achieve that and this has to be achieved through the tourism strategy therefore I developed a new brand Explorer Jordan RJ. The main target here is to inform the consumer as well to corporate about the beauty and variety of Jordan. For me as a non-Jordanian I lived in eight countries, I can say Jordan is truly Arabia, it’s contemporary modern Arabia and this is something which we have to get into the crowd to emotionalize Jordan more.