Saudia Airlines

@Cherryann01

Saudia is a relatively new player to the Arabian Gulf transit market. As such its 'customer experience' is somewhat lacking and less polished than the major 3 Gulf 'super' carriers.

It does seem rather strange though that you cannot reserve seats in advance. Many carriers now profit by charging for window and front of cabin seats.

I called customer services and the guy on the phone like many call centre personnel seemed somewhat clueless but after some prompting he said the seat availability 'might' become apparent nearer to the departure time so keep checking Cherryanne.

If you have not done so already make sure you join the 'AlFursan' (yes it just rolls off the tongue) frequent flyer programme and that the booking agency have this on your ticket when issued by Saudia. It costs nothing but will give you priority on upgrades particularly on the KL leg where business class will be light.

Looking on Quora I have found somebody that asked the same question a while ago and reading through the answers and bearing in mind I had limited seat selection on the 2nd leg of my journey and none on the other 3 legs, there are 2 answers that I read that may account for this.

The most popular theory seems to be that the airline allocates a block of seats to different third party companies who people can book with and that may explain the small section of seats I could book on the 2nd leg of the flight. Maybe waiting a week or so may be the answer.

Have attached a discussion link below on the Flyer Talk Forum.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other-m … ction.html