Riyadh Air runs two routes into the same job, and they do not ask for the same things.

One is direct entry, advertised in English through city recruitment event listings, with eight published requirements including a height, an arm reach and a swimming requirement. The other is the NAWAT Cabin Crew Program, eight months of training that leads into the airline, with five published requirements and no height, reach or swimming line among them. NAWAT is open to Saudi nationals only, and its listing is published in Arabic alone.

If you are not a Saudi national, only one of those doors is open to you.

Direct entry: what Riyadh Air asks for

Eight requirements, published on each city recruitment event listing under the heading "Do you have what it takes to fly with us?"

  • Age. "You must be at least 21 years old to join our crew."
  • Education. "A high school certificate or higher is required."
  • Customer service experience. "At least one year in hospitality or a customer-facing role."
  • Height and reach. "At least 160 cm tall with an arm reach of 212 cm."
  • Language. "Fluent English is essential, and welcome skills in all other languages."
  • Swimming. "You must be a confident swimmer and able to use flotation devices."
  • Appearance. "No visible tattoos or piercings in uniform."
  • Visa and relocation. "You must meet Saudi employment visa requirements and be open to relocating to Riyadh, your new home."

One of those separates Riyadh Air from every other carrier in this series.

The swimming requirement is the strictest of the five. Riyadh Air asks for a confident swimmer who can also use flotation devices. flydubai asks only that you be "confident in the water when wearing a flotation aid/life jacket", which is a lower bar, and Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad publish no water requirement on their cabin crew careers pages or in their cabin crew job postings. If you cannot swim, Riyadh Air is the one carrier of the five that tells you so before you apply.

The piercings line is less distinctive than it looks. Riyadh Air names piercings alongside tattoos in a single line, and Etihad's cabin crew job posting uses the same pairing. Emirates and flydubai restrict visible tattoos in uniform and say nothing about piercings, and Qatar Airways publishes no appearance rule at all. So two of the five are explicit about piercings, and three are not.

The rest sits close to the other carriers in this series: a minimum age of 21, like Emirates, Etihad and flydubai; one year of customer service, like Emirates and flydubai; and 160cm with a 212cm reach, the same pairing Emirates publishes.

Above the eight criteria, the listings carry a softer block headed "What we're looking for", describing a natural communicator, someone ready to bring the airline's "Hafawa" hospitality, and an adventurer at heart. Those are dispositions rather than tests, and none of them gives you a line to measure yourself against.

NAWAT: the other door

Riyadh Air's English careers pages describe the NAWAT Cabin Crew Program as "an eight-month training journey designed to equip the next generation of Saudi cabin crew", "Developed in partnership with Bunyan for Training Company and aligned with international aviation standards".

The Arabic listing adds that the programme covers operational skills, safety procedures, and language and professional readiness, and that candidates who complete it successfully join Riyadh Air's cabin crew directly. The English pages put that more strongly, listing among the benefits: "Training guaranteed to lead to employment upon successful completion."

The two languages disagree on one detail. The English pages name the training partner as Bunyan for Training Company, and the Arabic listing as Bunyan Training Academy.

The listing's published requirements are five, and they are lighter than the direct entry list:

  • Saudi nationality
  • The ability to travel internationally to all Riyadh Air destinations
  • A secondary school certificate or equivalent
  • A command of the basics of English
  • Completion of all training stages and passing the required courses

The fifth is a condition of finishing rather than something you can check before applying, so a candidate has four published lines to measure themselves against, where direct entry has eight.

Nothing is published about age, height, reach, swimming, experience or appearance for NAWAT. Be careful what you read into that. An unpublished criterion is not the same as an absent one, and an eight-month training programme may well apply standards it does not advertise. What can be said is narrower and still useful: where direct entry says "Fluent English is essential", NAWAT asks for the basics, and where direct entry sets a physical standard in writing, NAWAT sets none. If you hold Saudi nationality and have concluded from the direct entry list that you fall short, read the NAWAT listing before you give up.

Riyadh Air describes NAWAT in English on its careers pages, but the listing you apply through is published in Arabic only.

Applying

Riyadh Air runs a dedicated cabin crew portal. It carries the city recruitment event listings, the NAWAT programme and two direct entry senior roles, Purser and Cabin Supervisor.

It is not the only place the airline advertises cabin crew work. When this guide was researched, a Cabin Crew Trainer role appeared only on Riyadh Air's general careers portal, filed under Operations. If you have cabin crew experience, search both.

The city listings are applications to attend a recruitment event rather than the event itself. Each one tells you to "Click "Apply" to submit your application" for that city's event, and adds that "Our Talent Acquisition team is reviewing applications now and will be in touch with qualified candidates soon."

No dates are published against any of the events. You apply for a city and wait to be contacted, which puts this closer to Qatar Airways' city-by-city application windows than to Emirates' walk-in open days. The difference is that Qatar Airways' windows carry a closing date, and Riyadh Air's carry nothing at all, so the page cannot tell you whether an event is imminent or long past.

If your city is not listed, Riyadh Air points you to a talent community: "Can't find a recruitment event near you? Join our Cabin Crew Talent Community and be the first to hear about upcoming recruitment events that match your interests and location."

Nothing is published about what happens at the recruitment events themselves. There is no format, no stage list, and no indication of how many rounds there are or how long it takes. On that, Riyadh Air sits alongside Qatar Airways, which also publishes nothing, and behind flydubai, which names four stages before its assessment days, Emirates, which publishes a three-part recruitment day with a document checklist, and Etihad, which describes its assessment day.

The English cabin crew page on the airline's main site publishes no requirements at all. The eight criteria appear only on the individual city listings, so a candidate has to open one to learn whether they qualify.

What happens after an offer

Riyadh Air publishes six things about the job, under the heading "What we offer". Two of them no other carrier in this series publishes.

"Full salary payment during your entire training period." Set that beside flydubai, which publishes a training bond of USD 2,650 for the first year and does not say how it applies to cabin crew. Of the five carriers, these are the only two that say anything about the money around training, and they point in opposite directions.

"Competitive compensation package including a guaranteed 75 flight hours per month until the end of 2026." No other carrier in this series publishes a floor under flying hours. Emirates, Etihad and flydubai all describe pay that is part fixed and part flown, so a guaranteed minimum puts a floor under the variable part. The guarantee carries an end date, so check whether it still stands when you apply.

The other four are softer: global travel opportunities representing Saudi Arabia, career development pathways beyond the cabin, the airline's Paris-inspired cabin fashion, and a culture built on connection, belonging and Saudi warmth.

What is missing is most of what you would want to know. On its cabin crew listings and careers pages, Riyadh Air publishes no salary figure of any kind, no probation period, no contract length, no roster pattern, no days off figure, no accommodation arrangement and no training length for direct entry crew, though it gives eight months for NAWAT.

So the guaranteed 75 hours is a floor under a number the airline does not publish. You are told the shape of the pay and not its size.

Only Qatar Airways shares that silence, publishing no pay figure anywhere a candidate can reach. Emirates and flydubai both publish detailed numbers, and Etihad publishes a ceiling of up to AED 10,000 a month on its cabin crew job posting.

The fraud warning

Riyadh Air carries a warning on its cabin crew portal that is worth reading whoever you are applying to. It says fraudulent websites and links have asked people to pay fees when applying for jobs at the airline through unofficial channels, and it states that "Riyadh Air will only engage with potential applicants through our official channels and that Riyadh Air would never request any payments or personal bank details during the application process."

Payments and bank details, named together, before you have been offered anything. That is the test.

Etihad's warning goes a step further and is worth borrowing. Alongside payment and bank details it names personal information, and it tells candidates how a genuine interview is conducted: "face-to-face or via video/telephone before any formal offer". Knowing what the real process looks like is the most useful thing either warning gives you.

Our guide to fake airline job offers compares the warnings eighteen airlines publish.

A note on sourcing

The eight direct entry requirements, the "What we're looking for" block, the six items under "What we offer", the application wording and the fraud warning come from Riyadh Air's cabin crew portal. All fifteen city recruitment event listings open when this was researched carry the same requirement and offer blocks, checked line by line, and none carries a date. The NAWAT requirements and programme description come from the Arabic listing, the only place they appear, and are summarised here in English rather than quoted, because a translated quotation is not the airline's published wording. The English description of NAWAT, its four listed benefits and the talent community line come from Riyadh Air's careers pages, and the Cabin Crew Trainer role from its general careers portal. All were read on 28 September 2026.

The comparisons come from each airline's own pages, also read on 28 September 2026: the Emirates Group Careers cabin crew page, Etihad's cabin crew careers page and job posting, Qatar Airways' cabin crew recruitment page and flydubai's cabin crew careers page. Qatar Airways' closing dates are from its city postings, as reported in our guide to Qatar Airways. Where this piece says one of those carriers publishes nothing on a subject, that is scoped to those pages.

Which cities are listed changes, and the portal is the only reliable answer on any given day. Nothing here comes from candidate accounts, coaching sites or recruitment agencies.