MADINA: Saudi Arabian Airlines has enough planes to meet increasing domestic demand, said Abdullah Al-Ajhar, Assistant General Manager of Saudi Airlines for Public Relations. He added that the airlines currently has 88 airplanes and a plan to acquire 25 more. Al-Ajhar added that Saudia will continue to compensate passengers for any delayed flights after studying individual cases. He also apologized to the hundreds of passengers who were recently delayed by sandstorms which hit a number of cities across the Kingdom. Al-Ajhar said he “understands” the difficulties the passengers had to go through during the two-day crisis and added that “we had an emergency plan that was executed during that time”. Meanwhile, Naser Assayed, director of Gulf Air in Madina, commended “the efforts of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) to develop airports and support those working in the field”. On difficulties facing the company, he said there are insufficient arrival gates for airline companies at airports. “Companies have schedules for their domestic flights and when arrival or departure procedures are delayed for half an hour or more then the whole flight-course (to other destinations) is delayed.” Assayed said his company will soon increase weekly flights to-and-from Prince Muhammad Bin Abdul Aziz International Airport, from four to seven. Despite the airport's poor capacity, the airport's management is making an effort to solve problems facing airline companies, he said. Citing an example, he said he once called a manager on the second day of Eid holiday because of a problem that led to the delay of a flight. “The manager came personally within minutes after my call and he supervised the solution to the problem. There are obvious efforts concerning safety, dealing with increased flights during season and constant reduction of errors.” He noted that some of those working at airports “do not realize” the extent of losses resulting from a delayed flight and the effect on other flights. He said he has to submit a report on the reasons for a delayed flight to the company's management. Assayed called for more training courses related to passenger services at Madina airport. “We started working at Madina airport 10 months ago and held a training course for the company's new airport staff. We were surprised to discover that it was the first time a training course was held for passenger services.” Ibrahim Sedqi, Director of Turkish Airlines in Saudi Arabia, said the main problem facing airlines in the Kingdom is related to insufficient number of passenger terminals, in addition to the fact that companies are unable to operate many scheduled flights in time at the Madina and Jeddah airports during Haj and Umrah seasons. “We often delay the departure or arrival because no counter would be available,” he said. He added that the costs for ground services are high. “Previously there were several companies introducing ground services separately, but when they were incorporated, the service fees went up.” He said they complained to GACA but nothing has been done yet.
