I am flying Saudi Airlines since 15 years, I made around 35 trips from Saudia to Mumbai or
Hyderabad, in my 30 trips or so, I never had an occasion to complain about my baggage, flight timings, and cabin crew, check in, food, ground staff and any other normal aspect of travel.

This Airline has many aircrafts in their fleet, some of them I give them below: B747 - 468 first Class 36seats 32 Business Class, 290 Economy seats B747 - 368 first Class 36seats 38 Business Class, 319 Economy seats B777 - 268 first Class 30seats 31 Business Class, 183 Economy seats

They have many other Aircrafts in their fleet, I always flew between India, Saudia, UAE, I don’t know about other sectors, but in my sector the food is as per my taste, spicy, they used to serve non-spicy before 1995 but now their menu is compatible to the sector requirement, Hyderabad their boarding cards are issued on Indian Airlines stationery, it seems ground services of Saudi Airlines in Hyderabad are being taken care of by Indian Airlines, they have their appointed travel agents in all major cities of India, in Hyderabad it is AARAFAT TRAVELS, you should take your passport at the time of reservations and other requirements, I asked the counter person why we must have passports, he said this is for Visa Check, Saudi Arabian Visa is stamped in Arabic Language and they follow Hijri Calendar (Lunar Calendar) usually passengers do not know what dates are equivalent to Gregorian Calendar, that is the reason the staff check the dates of visa for us and help us out with status and other things.

It is well known that Saudi Arabia has 2 holy cities of Muslims, MECCA and MEDINA and Muslims from all over the world come to these Holy places during Hajj month (It is the 12th month of Lunar Calender) They come to Saudi Arabia in millions and also they have visitors all the year round coming to perform UMRA (Minor Hajj) This is the reason the Airlines has become very efficient handling all nationalities of this world. The cabin crew are conversant with 4 or 5 Languages easily including Arabic, The Gulf Countries all have foreign workers employed in all their airlines, this is also one of the reason you find staff knowing many languages.

Saudi Arabian Airlines is known to purchase brand new Aircrafts direct from the manufacturers, that is the reason all Aircrafts are new and in very good conditions, I have never heard on their public announcement systems that we have to make a emergency landing because of a technical snag, I have also never been delayed using this Airline. I flew with them on their domestic flights, even their domestic services are smooth and easy like grease, now a day you see lot of Saudi Young boys as cabin crew and also you hear many pilots are Saudi Nationals. In flight entertainment has 1 Big screen on each partition of the Aircraft 100 or more seats and they have TV monitor embedded in the back seat headrest for every class passenger, on the big screen you can watch a movie chosen by the projector staff, we have around 12 Video Channels to choose from, Hindi, English Movies, English Soaps, Arabic Movies, Arabic Soaps, English Songs, Arabic Songs and Quran (Majd Channel) We have a choice of Audio Channels, one of the Audio Channel is recitation of Holy Quran continuously till the end of our journey, we have also choice of video games from the same monitor,
There are 2 player games, board games and chase games, these all can be accessed with a wired remote control from the hand rest of your seat. Menus are easy to access and channels are easy to change. We are given immediately after boarding a perfumed napkin and some fruit juice of your choice and later the foods and unlimited black tea, they provide also pillows, blankets, eye mask and ear phones to each passenger even extra pillows are provided if you request for it.

The overhead compartments are spacious can hold 3 hand carry’s easily. Al Fursan is the name of their frequent flyer program, this card is acceptable for discounts with many leading card services provider like Sheraton, Hilton, Budget, Avis etc., www.saudiairlines.com is their website where you can know about every service they provide, you can do reservations online too on their website.

They have code sharing agreements with many leading airlines of Europe, Asia, and Americas. You can take home the airlines complimentary magazine called Ahlan Wasahlan (WELCOME) this magazine has good write ups about travel destinations of the world and also some nice features on wild life of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. In flight sales accept all major credit cards, they sell perfumes, jewellery, watches and many others branded items they swatch, radon, ysl etc., with them, they also have SAUDI ARABIAN AIRLINES products made for the in flight sales specially items such as watches, bags , toys , perfumes etc., which are a lot cheaper than other branded items. They are a good buy. You can buy nice DATES and date biscuits and other date mixed products in the flight, they sell rosaries too.

Thank you for reading Misba

PLAN AHEAD

Make sure your digital camera is in good working order before you go, and keep it in a water- and shock-resistant case. Bring two sets of rechargeable batteries and don’t forget the charger and relevant cords. Make sure your camera has enough memory. Packing an extra memory card is wise, as there is nothing worse than running out of room for pictures halfway down the Grand Canyon. It may be tempting to lower the resolution so you can store more pictures, but you will regret this later as it may result in poorer quality prints, or you will be limited to smaller size prints. Set your camera at its highest quality JPEG setting and get more memory if you have to. You will appreciate this when you’re viewing and printing your photos after your trip.

TAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF PICTURES.

With a digital camera you can always erase the photos you don’t want. Take pictures of anything you find interesting and try to focus on some of the details such as an attractive doorway or a colorful market, not just panoramic scenes or major landmarks. Let your pictures tell a story by creating a visual diary of your trip. Include street scenes, interesting signs, people you see along the way. For variety take both vertical and horizontal pictures.

READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP?

When taking people shots, don’t make the mistake of standing too far away. You want to be able to recognize the people in your photos. Get close enough so you can see the expressions on your subjects faces. Zoom in on individuals or capture them from the waist up. Pictures are often more interesting when you can catch people at candid, un-posed moments. In posed photos, try to incorporate some of the background into your shot. Try snapping from interesting angles rather than simply head-on.

USE YOUR FLASH

When photographing in bright sunlight, setting your camera’s “fill” or “forced” flash is very helpful, particularly when photographing people. Brilliant sunlight often makes people’s faces look harsh, casting dark shadows under the eyes and accentuating wrinkles. The daytime fill-in flash will soften the lighting and make the images more flattering. Your family and friends in the photos will thank you!

EDIT AND ENHANCE YOUR FAVORITE SHOTS

When you get home you can edit, crop and enhance your favorites using photo editing software such as Foto Finish, Ulead or Photoshop Elements. Consider adding drama to your images by turning some of your color photos into black and white or sepia tones and then upload all your images to an online photo printing service like Ofoto or Shutterfly for fast and convenient prints. You can take your best snaps and use your photo editing software to create a photo calendar or make photo cards for personal notes, or to email your favorites to family and friends.

Most of all have fun with your camera!

* Leave home early

Airport stress starts the moment you leave home. Don’t sit in traffic watching minutes tick away. Aim to arrive at the airport two hours early (usually required for International flights). Then if there’s traffic delays, you’ve still got plenty of time.

* The check-in Line

Now you’ve arrived, next step’s check-in. Usually, there’s multiple lines you can choose from. Which looks quickest ? Maybe the longest line is quickest ? Here’s a couple tips. If you see lots of families and children in a line, avoid it. By the time they’ve found all their tickets, and sorted their luggage jumble, they’ve taken twice the time of a couple or single person.

Look for a short check-in line that’s not easy to see. Look at each end of the check-in aisles, and maybe there’s a valid check-in hidden by a pillar, that few people see. Happened to me just recently, and cut a half hour off my check-in time - a half hour I spent relaxing in the bar.

* How long to walk from lounge to gate ?

Maybe I should publish a guide to ‘walk-time’ at different airports ! I’ve walked anything from 2 minutes to 20 minutes after a call to Gate.

Ask at check-in. It’s an important question. When that screen flashes ‘Go to Gate’, it’s much less stressful if you know how long you’ll take to walk there. All your good work of stress-reduction goes down the tubes if you walk 5 minutes and then realize your gate is way the other side of the airport terminal.

Sometimes you even have to go through more security, or another passport check, and find a line waiting there. I once travelled out of Spain, and this exact same thing happened. A long passport control line stood between me and my gate, where departure was scheduled just 15 minutes later. Luckily myself and 5 others decided to go right to the front and explain the situation - no one objected to us going thro first.

But try to avoid this un-necessary stress by checking in advance.

* Invest in the Executive Lounge

If you travel often you might get free entry to an airport executive lounge. If not, you can often pay a small amount to use it. The ideal low-stress airport experience begins in the executive lounge. Away from all the airport hustle & bustle, relax with free drinks and nibbles. Read a newspaper or magazine and you’re soon in just the right, relaxed frame of mind for your journey.

* Nervous ?

Don’t feel embarrassed to be nervous. A lot of people are nervous of flying, but you know it’s much safer than your car journey to the airport. If you can’t use an executive lounge, then there’s a couple other options to reduce your stress. Try shopping ! Yes, retail therapy can help take your mind off your nervousness and stress. No need to buy anything - just wander around looking…

Follow the above tips and you’ll have a relaxed and stress free airport experience, all ready to enjoy your vacation or business trip.

The advantages:

1. Search engines are today focusing link popularity. If airports would build a portal of the airport with interested companies and ask the companies at the airport as a condition for getting the aero-domain and the link to their websites that the companies link back to the airport’s website, the airports will get many links back to their own website.

By this they increase the success of their website. Especially Google,the most important search engine of the world, is working with link popularity. If you assume, that the website is important for your marketing, you should try to improve your ranking at Google and other search engines.

2. ICANN accredited Registar Secura will sell to airports the domains for other companies at reseller conditions. The IT departments can sell the domains at the price, which they think is fitting. The IT departments of airports will have an economic advantage at every sold aero-domain.

We also propose to airports they you should realize the shortcut initiative of SITA. One of many examples: If somebody is entering at the PDA parking.youraeroport.aero, there are hints how to go and/or drive to the parking lot. Secura GmbH is also ready to make free subdomains in order to help to realize the shortcut initiative.

Hans-Peter Oswald

The author is the CEO of Aero Registrar Secura GmbH

Tourists are the favorite prey of the goblins of the world for the following reasons:

They are easy to spot. Tourists make the mistake of not blending in, wearing clothes that stand out. Shorts in a climate where everyone else is wearing pants. Brand-new clothes with bright colors. A camera around the neck, and a generally lost look on the face.

They’re not armed. It is illegal to carry most weapons on common carriers such as airliners. Goblins know this and purposefully go after the tourist.

Tourists make the mistake of flaunting wealth. They wear expensive jewelry, and carry large amounts of cash.

False sense of confidence. When people travel from developed countries such as Japan, the United States or England to third world countries they incorrectly assume the country they are visiting has the same overall safety as the developed country. Those tourists are often unpleasantly surprised at how dangerous the country is that they are visiting.

Tourists are assumed to be rich. People in most third world countries do not have the money to travel. So they think that anyone who can travel must be rich. They often resent that supposed wealth, and are willing to take drastic action to take it from tourists.

So, what is the answer? Never travel to new areas? No, that would be an awful way to live your life. Travel is fun and exciting, and no matter what the possible threats are, you shouldn’t let a few dirt-bags ruin your fun.

The key is to avoid trouble by not standing out as a lost, vulnerable tourist.

Learn about the area you will be traveling to. The more familiar you are with the new area, the more confident you will be as you stroll down the street. Use the Internet to get maps of the area, and information on the sights you want to visit. Find out as much as you can about the culture of the people you will be visiting. Your primary goal is to blend in.

Find out what people usually wear in the area you will be visiting.

Hopefully you will already have similar clothes. It is best not to wear brand new clothes.

Go with a group if possible. There is strength in numbers for tourists.

Being with a group is especially important if it is your first time to the new country. A tour group is a great way to go because the tour guide will only take you to areas that are “safe” for tourists. Do not venture out on your own, unless you know for certain the area you are going to visit is relatively safe. Stay in the neighborhoods that are set up for tourists.

Consider arming yourself with weapons that can be carried on common carriers. A good solid three foot walking stick is an example. A goblin would think twice before trying anything with you carrying such a weapon.

Don’t carry cash. Use credit cards, or travelers checks. If they are stolen, you can get them replaced. If you normally carry your wallet in your back pocket, change it to your front pocket. Pickpockets have a very hard time getting your wallet from the front. Carry a little extra cash in your sock or shoe, just in case you need some emergency money.

Don’t tempt fate. Even if you think you are in a very safe area, do not leave valuables out in plain sight. Some desperate people might attempt to kill you in order to get your valuables.

Whenever you travel you must continually be in a heightened state of awareness. If you slip out of that aware state, you could find yourself in serious danger.

By using the aforementioned concepts you should be able to have a safe, enjoyable trip with little chance of being attacked.

This article was written by Scott Flint a 5th degree Black Belt with 27 years of experience teaching Self-Defense.

This article is from the Travel Safe chapter of Scott’s Self-Defense book titled: Waking The Tiger Within–How To Be Safe From Crime

You can order this book at: http://SelfDefenseManual0.tripod.com

This is a 136 page comprehensive Self Defense Manual. This book sells at the site for only $9.95 25% off of the retail price.

You can contact Scott Flint at WakingTheTiger@yahoo.com