There has been much criticism to our national carrier that bears the name of our country. The latest criticisms came from the Shoura Council and were mainly directed at its service and finance. Let’s focus here on the service aspect. Almost every passenger complains against flight delays and the improper treatment by some Saudia staff. This led a remarkable number of citizens, mainly non-government employees, to avoid traveling abroad with Saudia. Of course, for domestic flights citizens have no option but to take Saudia.

If Saudia improved its services, committed itself to its time schedules, and did justice to passengers who complained about the behavior of some of the airlines’ staff, every Saudi would be keen on traveling with Saudia. Indeed, it bears the name of our country, travel supplications are pronounced before takeoff, and prayers are made on its flights, as stated by a Saudi passenger when he and his family of eight members were not allowed to board the plane in Paris. He was disappointed because Saudia was his favorite airline.

An illustration of Saudia’s low services is the fact that our airports are replete with Gulf aircraft to take passengers coming in or traveling to other countries. Saudia, on the other hand, sends small planes to the Gulf airports. Just have a look at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, and you will see that it is full of Gulf aircraft in various colors, while there are only a small number of Saudia planes.

Another complaint came from the passengers on a Saudi flight from Washington last week, who said that their flight was delayed not just by an hour or two, but by two full days. They alleged that this ordeal continued for three days. One of them claimed that they had tried to reach Saudia staff at the station, but to no avail. This is one of the problems that Saudi passengers often face. They do not find any staff to solve their problem or at least placate them.

A year and a month ago I wrote in this column about a flight we made from Madinah to Riyadh. Our boarding passes were changed from first class to tourist class on the pretext that there was no first class on that flight. However, when we boarded, we discovered that this claim was false. Until today we did not read about the results of the investigation the assistant director general for public relations promised us.

To summarize, Saudia urgently needs to improve its transparency in dealing with its passengers, and to train its stewards and hostesses on how to treat them. It is the service on board that makes the difference between airline companies. The solution would be a surgical treatment in the form of dismantling this giant institution to become three companies: one for domestic transport, the second for international flights, and the third for official trips of top government officials. This would end the overlapping in the three sectors that is often used as a pretext for cancellations and delays of flights.