The first all-female flight in Saudi Arabia was completed Saturday by an airline, officials said, hailing it as a significant step toward women's empowerment in the traditional country.

flyadeal, the low-cost subsidiary of Saudia, operated a flight from Riyadh to Jeddah on Thursday, flyadeal spokesman Emad Iskandarani said.

According to Iskandarani, most of the seven crew members were Saudi women, including the first officer, but not the captain, who was a foreigner.

The Saudi civil aviation authority, which confirmed flyadeal's announcement on Saturday, has highlighted women's growing roles in the aviation sector in recent years.

In 2019, Saudi Arabia's aviation authority announced the first flight with a female co-pilot.

Saudi officials are trying to develop a fast-growing aviation sector that would turn the Kingdom into a global travel hub.

Among the goals are tripling the annual traffic to 330 million passengers by the end of the decade, bringing in $100 billion in investments by 2030, establishing a new national flag carrier, building a new "mega airport" in Riyadh, and moving up to five million tonnes of freight a year.