Saudia Airlines

Has anybody used this airline before? I am on my way back to the Philippines next month and have booked flights from the UK to Manila with a 3 night stopover in KL. The flight from KL to Manila is with Air Asia and is not a problem but I am having problems selecting seats for the 4 legs of my journey with Saudia Airlines.


I have  booked through a 3rd party (Jetabroad) and used them before with no major issues. My problem is that when I log into the Saudia Airlines website and try to select my seats, only a small portion of the interior of the plane comes up and on 3 legs of my journey they do not show any seats, just the areas where the toilets and galley is located and the aircraft wings are also visible. On the 2nd leg from Jeddah to KL a small selection of seats are available to be selected and I am able to select a seat.


Every other airline I have used when selecting seats has shown the full interior of the aircraft and shown all the seats. The ones that have already been selected are usually shown with an X or are coloured in so to show they are not available but still I could see what was and was not available to select in all sections of the aircraft.


Does anybody have an experience  of booking seats with Saudia or have any idea why the whole interior of the aircraft is not shown when I try to reserve my seats?


I will also say that I find it hard to believe  that none of  the seats shown in the small section of the aircraft shown on the 2nd leg of my journey have been reserved.

@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