JDT1955

Hi, All, I was hoping to get some advice on an upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia (I posted this a couple of months ago but now other options are presenting themselves). Plans are to fly CLE-EWR-OSL (all flights in paid C, upgrading to F where possible) to referee a PhD student’s thesis defense, then onto Jeddah via IST on TK for a conference where I’ll be speaking. Hope to get a couple of Red Sea dives in, and then out ASAP once my talks are done (Thanksgiving and all that). In the past, I’ve done LH via FRA or MUC, but that flight leaves at ~3AM and I won’t get back to CLE until the evening. If I can schedule my talks early enough, I’d like to try to get to the UA flights out of either KWI or DOH-DXB. (Anticipating the chorus of “why would you ever fly UA home from the Middle East when there’s QR and EK?”, I’ll fully accept the argument but only say that I’m tantalizingly close enough to 4MM and the promised land of GS for life for me and my wife that the UA metal miles are important for now.) Anyway, here are the UA options:

JED-DOH on QR 1740-1945, then out on UA977 at 2100 to DXB-IAD-CLE

JED-KWI on KU 1640-1840, then out on UA981 at 0110 to IAD-CLE

Unfortunately, the JED-DXB flight times don’t work out to skip the DOH connection.

I’ll only have carry on so no interline xfer issues. A few ?’s:

1) One minor plus for the KWI route is picking up a new country for myself, but I’ve heard the whole country is dry, including, I presume, their airline and any lounge that UA might contract with there. True? Am I looking at a pretty dreary 6.5 hours at KWI? Will UA serve any PBD’s or only once in the air?

2) Is 75 minutes enough time to connect in DOH from QR to UA in C/F? I guess I’d only get a glimpse of the Onyx lounge as I run to the plane.

3) Will the QR JED-DOH flight serve alcohol? UA DOH-DXB?

4) Any signs that UA is improving their reliability on these flights.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I know there are many with far more experience in this part of the world than I do.

brp1264

I'm off to Jeddah tomorrow EWR-FRA-JED. I have traveled on UA around the ME last year as well, and will try to give my two cents.

There's a JED-DXB flight on Saudi Airlines that departs at 1545 and gets you into DXB at 1930 - this would give you time to catch the DXB-IAD flight. As you probably know, DXB is the best airport in the region to have a layover in (unless perhaps you're in F and in DOH).

Also, there's a JED-BAH Saudi Airlines flight departing at 1650 and getting you into BAH at 1900. This would allow you to catch the 2115 BAH-KWI-IAD flight. You would also get access to the Dilmun (sp?) Lounge in Bahrain that has a good assortment of food and drinks (alcohol included). I take this flight often when I am flying out of Al Khobar instead of flying from DMM. I take a car service across the causeway to Bahrain, then BAH-KWI-IAD-EWR. Also, you get off the plane for a little over an hour in KWI and sit in a waiting room (no need to clear security unless you want to go inside the airport), so you can technically say you were "in" Kuwait.

To answer your questions below:

1. Yes, KWI is dry and I would assume the lounges are dry as well, but I wouldn't know as I have never left the waiting area mentioned above. Not sure if UA offers PDB's, as I fly Y, but they definitely offer alcohol after takeoff.

2. With the bus situation in DOH, I'd probably like to give myself more time than that. It's not a fun airport to connect in - DXB isn't that great either, with the tons of security checks and whatnot.

3. UA should serve alcohol, not sure on the QR. The LH flight at 2am to FRA definitely does, and people often have 2 beers at a time.

4. I'd be wary of flying UA in this area, ESPECIALLY during the holidays. I have read a report recently of them cancelling some of the extra legs (i.e. KWI-BAH leg cancelled and you had to wait to the next day to fly out). Also, I just had a flight EWR-HKG cancelled on me for a 12/30 departure due to low yield on the flight. Others are reporting similar issues for United flights around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Hopefully they've cancelled all the ones they plan to by now, but it would blow if they cancelled you and you couldn't make it home for Thanksgiving with the new routing they provide.

Good luck either way!

JDT1955

Thanks so much for the info, brp1264, very helpful. Unfortunately, I don't see the JED-BAH 1650 flight on my day of travel. Sounds like the 1545 flight to DXB might be the safest, providing I can get all my talks in during the morning. How far ahead of flight time would I need to be at JED for such a flight? I'm hoping that UA has got their holiday schedule set by now, though that certainly has elements of wishful thinking!

DXBPlat

Some help on your first 3.

1) Kuwait on the ground is totally dry even in the airport. It's also one of the worst airports you would ever want to spend time in. Should you end up there, you will only get alcohol once airborne.

2) Generally yes, all Middle Eastern airlines will wait for connecting passengers and you'll find the business/ first ones stroll on 10 mins before take-off time

3) No airline can serve alcohol over Saudi airspace so no to JED-DOH as you're only out of Saudi airspace for about 10 minutes in total and they don't bother opening it up no matter how important you are! DOH-DXB will serve alcohol but it's only a 30 min hop so get your orders in quick.

brp1264

Been busy in Jeddah so I didn't check this until now.

Leaving Jeddah is actually pretty quick - it took me like 15-20 minutes to clear immigration and security last time I left. I was actually very surprised when I arrived into Jeddah this time, as we cleared immigration in 10 minutes!!!

There's no lounge or anything fancy like that in Jeddah when I departed, so I wouldn't recommend getting there overly early. Depending on the airline you leave with, you may get a voucher for some crappy food court food.

JDT1955

Thanks for everyone's help on this. Sounds like KWI is one notch above a prisoner of war camp, so I'll probably do QR to DOH and hope United is on good behavior that night. Nice to know JED is not that crazy to leave...

JDT1955

Of course, no sooner did I post this than I noticed that on Sunday night, UA976 had a plane swap so got into DXB too late to go to DOH and there was no DOH-DXB leg last night...oh, well.