SAUDI Arabian Airlines (SAUDIA), the national flag carrier of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has received an award for best ‘Airline Inflight Entertainment and Connectivity (IFEC)' at the Inflight Middle East Awards ceremony, held in Dubai on Tuesday. A repeat winner at the Inflight Middle East award at the same ceremony last year, SAUDIA was honored with the titles, ‘Inflight Airline of the Year' and winner of ‘Innovation in Commercial Airline Cabins'. The event was organized by HMG Aerospace, a leading publisher, event organizer and intelligence provider serving the international aerospace community. The airline's continual investment in its IFEC platform was recognized with the ‘Airline IFEC experience' award. SAUDIA was selected based on its entertainment lineup, Wifi options and portable options onboard. SAUDIA was selected the winner out of 4 airlines operating in the region. Judges praised the airline becoming the first in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia regions to introduce a complimentary social media messaging plan onboard flights, allowing free access to iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. Present at the awards ceremony in Dubai were Saudi Arabian Airlines Vice President of Corporate Communications Fahad Bahdailah and SAUDIA Onboard Product Manager Ayman Abuljadayl. Bahdailah said: "SAUDIA has continued to raise the bar in excellence when it comes to the onboard guest experience, inflight connectivity and entertainment – which is an essential component of the travel journey. The airline is committed to continually providing a broad range of services and offerings onboard." Within four months of its introduction more than 500,000 guests had logged on and experienced the free Whatsapp plan." In 2018 the airline flew more than 33 million passengers, and introduced five new routes to its network: Vienna (Austria), Trivandrum (India), Surabaya (Indonesia), Medan (Indonesia) and re-introduced flights to Cochin, India, in addition to three seasonal routes to Izmir, Malaga and Moscow. SAUDIA flies to more than 95 destinations worldwide, with a modern fleet of more than 160 narrow and widebody Airbus and Boeing aircraft. The average age of the SAUDIA fleet is less than five years.
