GACA's Al-Sugair enters Saudi's aviation fuel cost fight

The country is currently planning to deregulate its domestic services and has  backed independent Saudi airline claims that aviation fuel is cheaper in neighboring countries.
“Aramco is charging airline companies prices higher than international prices, even in neighboring countries with lesser potential. For instance, Sudan is supplying fuel to all airline companies at a lower price than Aramco,” said vice president of GACA, Faisal Al-Sugair in a statement to the Al-Eqtisadiah daily newspaper.
In the statement Al-Sugair said the higher fuel prices harm the Kingdom’s airlines in various ways especially as airlines avoid fueling in Saudi airports to save money, thus resulting in losses to Saudi suppliers, he said. He claimed foreign aircraft avoid fueling in the Kingdom by landing with full fuel tanks. “It is unreasonable that the world’s top oil producer demands a higher price than other countries with lesser oil resources,” he said.
value carrier Nasair has previously said it could refuel in India cheaper than it can in its own country., Low cost carrier Sama ceased flying when it was forced to fly fixed-fare domestic routes but without the fuel subsidies enjoyed by the national carrier. Saudia.

Bidding for licenses of airline companies for the Saudi domestic market is set to begin this month. It is expected that the names of the qualified companies will be published in October