After tonight’s episode of RAW from Sacramento, WWE staff and talent will charter a flight to Saudi Arabia for Thursday’s Crown Jewel event. The flight takes about 20 hours in total when flown commercially.
Everyone traveling will have to pass a COVID-19 PCR test before boarding, according to PWInsider, and it is believed that everyone will need to be vaccinated as well, although that is not confirmed.
Following Crown Jewel, WWE staff and talent will then board a flight to Wichita, Kansas for Smackdown. When flown commercially, that flight time is approximately 18 hours. Provided there are no delays this time around, they should arrive in time for Smackdown on Friday.
2019 Crown Jewel Show Led To Travel Delays
There is a lot of controversy regarding what happened following the 2019 Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia. A long delay prevented WWE talent from flying out of the country. As a result, several Superstars did not make it to that week’s Smackdown event on time. Several wrestlers from NXT had to be brought in for the show. Many advertised matches did not happen as a result of wrestlers being stuck in Saudi Arabia.
The chartered flight company Atlas Air would later release a statement regarding the incident.
“A chartered WWE passenger flight operated by Atlas Air is currently delayed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia due to a mechanical issue. The flight was scheduled to depart at 0300 local time on November 1. Our top priority is always to ensure our passengers arrive safely and on time at their destination. The aircraft is being repaired and will be inspected and certified before returning to service to transport our passengers to their final destination. We regret that operational disruptions delayed the flight and apologize to our passengers who were inconvenienced.”
