The cost of airline tickets to and from Saudi Arabia will jump up to 8.5 percent, the ceiling authorized by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for the Gulf region. Cost of airline tickets in the Kingdom has already increased by 3.2 percent, the biggest in more than six years due to a surge in fuel cost. “In addition to the fuel cost, the travel industry in Saudi Arabia is experiencing sudden rush due to the robust economic activities going on in the Kingdom. Travel in and out of the Saudi Arabia is peaking up, hence airlines are fully booked even up to the first half of 2009,” said Abdulla Abo Khamseen, executive general manager of Kanoo Travels, the biggest travel agency in the Gulf region. “Availability of airline seats has become a problem now in Saudi Arabia. As a result of high demand, we are expecting that cost of travel will increase to 8.5 percent, the limit set by IATA, and this will happen very soon,” Abo Khamseen said. Severely affected by the hike in air tickets are foreign workers who have pre-determined airline ticket cost hedged by their employers before the increases in travel costs took effect. “These workers from India, Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and others, whose airline ticket costs are lumped to their wages, are not getting a fair deal from their employers due to increase in the cost of travel,” a travel agency executive said. “In this time of economic surge, employers must shoulder the cost in travel costs – those increases in airline tickets – to help foreign workers who are also suffering from the spiraling cost of living,” he said. Another option for foreign workers who are shouldering the additional costs in airline tickets is to travel via budget airlines with connecting flight with international airlines, like Air India. There are five low cost airlines operating in the Gulf region, namely, Air Arabia operating out of Sharjah, Jazeera Airways from Kuwait, Dubai, Sama and Nas Air operating both out of Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain Air out of Bahrain. “With summer vacation and travel already on the agenda of many citizens and foreign workers, getting airline seats will be difficult,” Abo Khamseen said. __
