trsqr

Howdy. Here's my first attempt at writing a trip report. Now this is not going to be an international nr. 1 bestseller, but I hope there's some good info for someone.

31 Mar 2008
Geneve-Cointrin (GVA/LSGG) - Riyadh King Khalid Airport (RUH/OERK)
Saudi Arabian Airlines SV 124
Boeing 777-200ER
HZ-AKD (cn 28347/103, delivered Dec 1997)
17:25-23:45
Business class, Seat 20A/16L (assigned/ended up sitting)

"You're flying in business class today." The Swissport gate agent at GVA had just made my day with those simple, but unexpected words and directed me to their lounge after passport control. After a quite er.. lively weekend skiing at Tahkovuori in Eastern Finland, driving home 6 hours, sleeping hardly at all and waking up at 5:30am, I sure wasn't feeling too energized. A run-of-the-mill AY flight to GVA in an Embraer 170 had been ok as usual, but the weather in GVA was not too welcoming. I wasn't in the mood for walking extensively in the rain, so after a brief stroll in the old town and a quick lunch at an okayish kebaberia I headed back to the airport. Musee de l'auto had sounded interesting, but the total lack of signage at the site put me down, so I abandoned the idea of spending a couple of hours there. Later I found out, that the museum had been closed for good in order to grow the annual car show(?).

After enjoying my last beers for probably 3 weeks, I headed over to the gate, where HZ-AKD was already awaiting for us. There was another Saudia plane sitting on the tarmac nearby - an MD-11 (Cargo, I presume). The flight was actually estimated to leave 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. At the door I was greeted by a female F/A, who had covered her head, but otherwise was wearing a typical uniform. I noticed that the ladies travelling on the flight generally did not wear an abaya at this point of the flight. The flight SV 124 has an interesting route: MAN-GVA-RUH-JED. I was onboard only for the GVA-RUH leg, although when booking the tickets I had an option to fly to MAN and take the same flight from there. The price was about equal. Funnily AY HEL-MAN and HEL-GVA flights left from adjacent gates in HEL at about the same time. In order to maximize my OW mileage and being the mileage slave that I am, I had chosen the longer AY flight and flew to GVA.

My seat was occupied by an elderly man and the seat next to him was occupied by his wife. The lady moved away, as I started to wonder about my seat. A few minutes later a flight attendant came to me and asked if I could change my seat, which I happily did - especially since the row 20 did not have a window. The seats in business class aren't the fanciest there are. No lie flats or such over here, although the recline was quite generous. The first class on Saudia matches probably what many operators nowadays sell as business class. My seat also seemed to recline gradually by itself, so after the takeoff I was leaning completely back.

Oh yes, in case you were wondering, Saudi Arabian Airlines *is* a dry airline. Before the take off we were given a small cup of coffee and dates instead of the usual bubbly stuff. Quickly after the take off menus, a nice sturdy pair of noise cancelling headphones, a rather well-equipped amenity kit and flip flops were distributed.

The menu for the Geneva-Kingdom leg was:

Starters

Arabic appetizer
- Hommus, taboulleh, magdous and stuffed courgette with rice

Balic Salmon (maybe Baltic?)
- Centre cut slices of smoked salmon with rosette of cream cheese


Salad

Fresh green mixed salad
- An assortment of fresh crisp salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, radish slices, topped with finely cut carrots & peppers, and cress served with your choice of salad dressing


Soup

Roasted tomato and red pepper soup
- A delicious soup made with roasted tomatoes and red peppers

Creamy vegetable soup
- Fresh vegetables cooked and thickened with cream


Hot Entrees

Lamb Tandoori
- Gently braised lamb shank in Indian Tandoori spices, along with biriyani rice, grilled zucchini and roasted red onion

Halibut with Lime sauce
- Grilled halibut fillet, coated with lime cream sauce presented with saffron potatoes, ribbons of courgettes, carrots and baby spinach

Chicken Madini
- Succulent breast of chicken marinated in yoghurt, saffron and eastern spices, served with machbous rice, tomato sauce, and aubergine masala

Tortellini with wild mushroom
- Tortellini pasta cooked with tomato and basil sauce on a bed of sautéed spinach


Dessert

Ice cream - Mango mousse
Fresh seasonal sliced fruits


Then I spent a while with the IFE. The screen was maybe 6" and of acceptable quality if a bit grainy. There were plenty of both Arabic and Western movies in the system. In the menus, the movies had rather descriptive yet unimaginative names like "Action movie 1", "Drama movie 1" and "Asian movie 1". Wonder how they were cut. There was a movie on the main screen as well. The two onboard cameras were not functional. In the end I just put the moving map on anyway. Never during the flight I saw any cities in Israel on the map. Watching down at the snowy mountains of Northern Italy made me miss skiing already. When coming back from the Kingdom the season would be very likely over.

When the time for dinner came, I opted for the Arabic appetizer and lamb tandoori. For some reason the soup was not served at all. The F/A seemed to be in quite a hurry, so I had to specifically stop him in order get another glass of water. The meal itself was tasty - I was especially happy with the nice and soft lamb I had. There was no ice cream, but I had the mango mousse, which was rather bland.

Rest of the flight went on quietly. The son of the elderly man came to sit next to me and had a chat with me. Seemed like a nice fellow. They were on a pilgrimage trip to Mecca and thus continuing towards JED from RUH. Landing to RUH was smooth and we taxied quickly to the gate. There weren't many people deplaning in RUH.

The flight was a first for me in many categories: first flight on SV, first flight on a dry airline, first flight from GVA, first flight to RUH, first flight on a 777, first time upgraded to business (without using points). Now I have only flown in business class a couple of times before, but somehow I felt that the service could have been a bit more attentive. I didn't have any major issues with anything, but of course it would be nice to have a completely flat bed, like so many carriers nowadays do - somehow the product felt outdated. Naturally I cannot complain, as I didn't pay a single eurocent for the flight and was expecting to sit in the economy class. And actually even that was something I was looking forward to! So far Riyadh has been a nice experience, but that's another story.

asnovici

Excellent report, thank you! I always enjoy reading about the airlines I probably will never step my foot on (by personal choice). Exciting read!

It is actually "balik" (also spelled "balyk" more often), its a type of salted and dried soft parts of fish, it doesn't mean it comes form any specific region.

Cheers! ^

BiziBB

Hi trsqr,
Thank you for an interesting report!

An unexpected upgrade to business class from Y is one of those rare and beautiful things. Make sure you use the 'miles flown' wisely on any applicable frequent flyer program. I agree service can be a little surprising for people accustomed to western-style service but it sounds like you had an unexpectedly pleasant flight.

I have added this trip report into an index of Mid-East & African-based airline trip reports, in the ME/Africa FFP forum thread, here.

There is a little discussion of some of the dry airlines here and some frequent visitors, so I hope you can visit some time.

Any other info on this airline, or answers to questions is appreciated.

From your FT name, are you based in Qatar?

trsqr

Thank you both for your kind words. I'll be happy to answer any questions, if I can.

And no, I've never been in Qatar (except for one refueling stop in DOH when flying RJ A310 BKK-AMM). The HEL airport is almost like a second home for me.

Cheers,
-olli

airoli

Thanks for this interesting report on an airline not frequently covered here! ^ Hope you have a good time in the kingdom.

jpatokal

Good report. ^

Somewhat surprisingly, none on the stewardesses on any Saudi airlines wear abayas -- this is one of those very rare instances where they've opted for practicality over convention. However, I gather that few if any of the crew are actually Saudis, Filipinas seem to make up the biggest group with Maghrebi Arabs (Morocco, Tunisia, etc) making up the rest.

I've generally found service on SV (Y) to be somewhat surly, but they do usually make an effort if you ask and are nice about it. The last time I flew DXB-RUH on SV, the crew didn't pass out landing cards for some reason, so I asked for one and, after scrounging for a while, the steward dug up one just for me. This paid off big time at the airport: turns out RUH seemed to be out of cards as well, so everybody in the lengthy queue in front of me was turned away and I got through in a jiffy

mag

thank you very much for an interesting report on an airline i will hardly ever fly.

(please ignore my ignorance if any, but i wonder why an airline from a country with such a high percentage of "high rollers" offers such a basic service in the premium classes... esp. on a popular rich destination like GVA or does everybody of the "upper ten" usually fly in their own plane?)

jpatokal

My understanding is that back in the seventies and eighties, when Saudia was rolling in dough, the service in the upper classes was opulent. However, once oil prices tumbled, service went downhill and has stayed there ever since... even though the Saudis are flush with cash again.

Thanks to the semi-liberalization of the Saudi market, there are now some other players like all-biz airline Al Khayala, but at present their only services are between RUH, JED and DXB.