JEDDAH: Saudi Arabian Airlines announced yesterday that it registered a loss of SR1.798 billion last year as a result of no-show passengers, who make reservations on its flights but change their travel plans without informing the airline.
“Statistics about operational performance show that more than 3.6 million passengers stayed back even after reconfirmation of their bookings,” said Khaled Al-Mulhim, the airline’s director general.
Domestic flights witnessed the largest number of no-show passengers last year as 2.3 million people did travel after reconfirming their seats. International flights saw 1.15 million no-show passengers. Al-Mulhim said the huge losses were created by the non-cooperation of passengers who did not care to cancel their seats when changed their travel plans.
“Other airlines are not suffering from such losses because they impose fines on passengers who do not show up after reconfirming seats,” he pointed out. “Recently Saudia also forced to adopt the same measure not to make money but to save seats for sure passengers and avoid flying with many vacant seats.”
He said the airline was going to introduce new measures from Feb. 1 to prevent no-shows and encourage passengers to cancel their booking whenever they don’t want to travel. Clients will be informed of the new measures through the media and its sales outlets, he added.
The huge loss comes after the airline made a record revenue of SR13.53 billion in 2005, the highest in its history. It posted its first profit (SR117 million) in 2002, which then doubled to SR252 million in 2003 and SR440 million in 2004.
Saudi Arabian Airlines, the world’s fifteenth largest carrier, is accelerating expansion of its fleet.
