IAD to Riyadh
 

Hi,

I will be going from IAD to Riyadh in December in C. What is LH service like in C from FRA to Riyadh (I know that LH to Europe in C is not much better than in coach). The alternative would be from IAD to Kuwait on UA in C and then onward on Saudi.

It may not be up to me to decide my itinerary (it is through the State Dept), but in case I do have a choice, it would be nice to have some notions of my options.

Hi. LH to RUH is fine in C. It is flown on an A330 which has new C and also F. The service is great with tablecloths and a four course meal with great choices. Unlike Saudia this route is like any LH route i.e. definitely not dry.

I have also flown LH Y on the same route and sworn I will never do it again. With Y I'd prefer Saudia even without the drinks.

I think bmi just started service to Saudi as well. You may want to look into that as their "the business" service is quite good.

I'd take this option. Having flown LH to RUH before, it's good. But I like UA C.
SV C is good too... in fact, for a short flight, it's perfect.

The big problem is that it is a TUI aircraft. :(

A 767-300 and I doubt it will have the lie flat seat. Geez BMI can't do anything right.

Thanks everyone. I don't think that BMI will be an option (and I don't even know whether I'll have any control over this). But at least the LH flight will be OK if that's what works out. Great help from FT, as usual.

What's your home program?
 

I'm guessing if you're based out of IAD, you're a UA MP person. If so, remember that Emirates and Qatar both accrue MP miles.

Unfortunately, neither fly out of IAD and the only one that can book a connecting flight, EK, code shares with DL and CO on their US legs.

Thanks--but since this is a trip paid for by the State Dept, I must fly a US flag carrier at least from IAD--and this is fine since I like UA's service in C (do it a lot to FRA). The issue was largely whether I go UA to Kuwait or UA to FRA and then onward on LH to Riyadh. Those seem to be the options on the table--well, maybe not, since State will book my ticket and I don't even know if UA to KWI is an option without pressing the issue. Since the LH flight from FRA seems fine, it probably isn't worth my effort to press it.

Thanks everyone.

I will echo the positive reviews of LH FRA-RUH. I would love to try the UA IAD-KWI route, too, but am not sure how to connect from there to RUH. Will UA ever set up any onward code-shares? I doubt it. I wonder if there is any option to check bags all the way through. (I flew RUH-DXB-LHR-IAD on SV-EK-UA and, amazingly, they checked my bags all the way through.) Perhaps this is an issue for a different thread.

Enjoy the Kingdom!

This is not true. You can easily travel on foreign carriers as long as the flight number is on a US airline, i.e. codeshare. I think Air France is very popular out of DC for many US govt personnel - on a DL flight number of course !