No-show passengers cost Saudi airline Dh1.75b last year

Riyadh: Saudi Arabian Airlines posted a loss of 1.79 billion Saudi riyals (Dh1.75 billion) last year which according to a top official, was due to no-show passengers.

Khalid Al Mulhim, director-general, said that statistics about operational performance show that more than 3.61 million passengers did not fly even after reconfirmation of their bookings.

"Saudi Arabian's domestic flights witnessed the largest number of no-show passengers last year as 2.3 million people did not travel after reconfirming their seats.

International flights saw 1.15 million no-show passengers," the director general said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabian, the world's 15th largest carrier, is a victim of no-show passengers, who make reservations on its flights but change their travel plans without informing the airline.

"The huge losses were created by the non-cooperation of millions of passengers who did not bother to cancel their seats when [they] changed their travel plans. The massive loss comes after the airline made record revenues of 13.53 billion Saudi riyals in 2005, the highest in its history.

According to the director general, it is unacceptable for the airline to incur such huge losses due to the irresponsibility of some passengers.

"The airline has been striving to make passengers aware of this phenomenon for several years, but all in vain.

"Therefore, we are also thinking of taking stringent measures to stem this tendency," he said. The airline is not considering imposing fines on no-show passengers, but to make sure that none of the aircraft fly with vacant seats when a large number of passengers on the waiting list were losing their chance to travel on these flights.

"Other airlines are not suffering from such losses because they impose fines on passengers who do not show up after reconfirming seats," he said.

"Recently Saudi Arabian [was] also forced to adopt the same measure not to make money but to provide seats for waiting passengers and avoid flying with many vacant seats."

Al Mulhim disclosed that the airline would introduce new measures from February 1 to prevent no-shows and encourage passengers to cancel their bookings when they don't want to travel.

Clients will be informed of the new measures through the media and its sales outlets, he said.

In 2005, I planned to travel from Dubai to India. However, I could not manage to arrive at the airport on time so I have missed the flight. But they have reconfirmed my seat on the next day's flight, which was highly appreciated.
Premkumar
Kuwait,Kuwait
Posted: January 29, 2009, 14:38