FLEW TO JEDDAH ON NAS AIR LAST WEEKEND

My Bebe and I flew to Jeddah over the (May 23-25) weekend. Nothing unusual but for the fact that it was our first time to fly NAS Air, one of two new budget airlines in Saudi Arabia (the other being SAMA).

Since the beginning of public air transport in the Kingdom, the airlanes have been dominated by Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Flying by NAS Air was pleasant enough - meaning, there was not much difference if you were flying the national carrier. The big difference was in the ticket price. The price difference was almost SR200 for the Riyadh-Jeddah-Riyadh round trip. It would have been even cheaper had we booked earlier or if we booked really early flights. Such is the unique pricing scheme of NAS Air: the earlier you book and the ungodly hour your choice of flight time, the lower the ticket price. A colleague at work was once able to fly the same route as ours for only SR19!

The only other glaring difference would be in the check-in paper work. Our boarding passes resembled more the point-of-sale (PoS) receipts at stores than the usual cardboard-type ones. Also, because we booked our flight online, there were no tickets issued. Booking online also necessitated having an email address (so the airline can send me the confirmation number and other flight details) and a credit card (so that I need not go to a NAS Air agent or ticket station to pay).

And as in budget flying, food on board is on sale.

NAS Air is actually operated by a Spanish company (lte; but I have not checked what the acronym stands for) and so the flight crew were Spaniards. My Bebe and I were easily able to practice our "buenas dias" and "gracias".

The existence of NAS Air (and of SAMA), spells the break up of the monopoly of Saudi Arabian of the airline market in the Kingdom. I just hope that the promise of competition will indeed be sustained and bring much-needed value to passengers, citizens and expatriates alike.