[faz123]

Abdullah Al-Ajhar, Vice President Public Relations, said "Saudi Airlines always gives top priority to the observations and complaints of its passengers, adding that they are taken care off with keeness"

I would like to refute the above claim made by the Vice President of Public Relations whom I believe has not had the most honoured experience of using the services of his own airlines during the holy month of Ramadhan as I had today.

Flying in from Nairobi to Jeddah early this morning (17/8/2010) on flight SV 430, after waiting for nearly three and a half-hours for a boarding ticket and suffering through a 5th security check which was conducted by the Saudi Arabian Airlines pilots who patted down the men and sifted through everyone's luggage before boarding the plane. I arrived at my allocated seat to find one of the flight attendants curled up in the seat with a blanket over her snoring heavily. I proceeded to wake her and point out to her that she had been currently occupying my seat, pointing out my seat number to her on my boarding pass. After much "Astaghafirullahâ'€s" from her€�. She rudely pointed out that the seat was allocated to her by the ground staff and she will not be moving from it and I can contact the ground staff if I had a problem. She then turned over, covered herself with the blanket and continued with her interrupted sleep. Angry at this point, I contacted one of the other flight attendants and informed her of the problem I was having and she unhelpfully pointed out that I should take a seat next to the chair stealing flight attendant and wait until everyone had boarded and she would assist me.

A few minutes later I spotted the supervisor of the ground crew Agnes Mbithi who was busy sorting out severel passengers who surpirise surprise had also been allocated seats wrongfully. As she approached me, I informed her of the problem I was having with this particular flight attendant in my seat and she quickly alleged that she will get back to me. Fifteen minutes later another flight attendant appears and states that I had been seating in her seat. I pointed out to her that I would gladly give up the seat if she could remove her colleague who was currently occupying mine so I could sit in it. Annoyed that she could not sit where she wanted, she waspishly informed me that all the front seats are normally reserved for only the flight attendants. I informed her that it was not my problem that her company allocated me a seat it should have reserved for them. She quickly covered herself with a blanket to stop further conversation between us.

Twenty minutes later frustrated and fed-up with the apathetic flight attendants, and patronizing ground staff. I managed to flag down the Supervisor of the ground crew Agnes Mbithi and informed her I was going to make a formal complaint about their poor services and unprofessional staff.She very happily supplied her name and badge number before hightailing it out of the flight. Needless to say, I never got my seat back and had to suffer the flight stuck between two flight attendants who happily snored away until the flight landed in Jeddah.

These types of attitudes and behaviour i would like to inform Mr. Al- Ajhar are what are bringing the standardâ's of your company down and driving potential customers like myself away from your services. "Top priority" is clearly not given to passengers complaints and clearly not taken care off with "keenness". As an Alfursan member I am absolutely disgusted with the entire experience and would first look into choosing other Airlines to fly Internationally with before Saudi Arabian Airlines. As a concerned passenger, I too will pass on the word to family, friends to avoid using this service.

As an airline that touts itself as a national carrier, it still has a long way to go before meeting international standards of customer service. All that glitters is not gold the wisemen once said, more so in regards to Saudi Arabian Airlines. Instead of increasing baggage limits, try to improve your services.

[airplanegod]

I have heard nothing but bad things about this airline, and yet a lot of other asian airlines are 5 star!