JEDDAH – The Saudi Arabian Airlines started providing some additional services for its passengers bound for the United States and the United Kingdom in the wake of the recent ban on carrying laptops, iPads and other electronic devices larger than a cellphone aboard direct inbound flights.
The services include 20 MB free Internet service on board the flights. The airline also arranged facilities on its new generation flights to use plug and play system on monitors instead of the devices through the support of a flash memory drive carrying personal data of the passenger at the designated windows.
The Saudia facilities will enable transit passengers to use their laptops and other devices while they are waiting for boarding at the departure longue. The airline’s ground handling staff at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah will receive the devices at the time of boarding and will keep them in separate boxes for each passenger, and these boxes will be kept in a separate section in the cargo section of the flights.
A separate baggage card will be issued for each box. These devices will be delivered to the passengers at the baggage reclaim area at the point of disembarkation.
Abdurahman Al-Tayyib, assistant director general of Saudia, said the national carrier took these measures to ease the burden on passengers bound for US and UK after the temporary ban on laptops and other electronic devices in carry-on luggage.
© The Saudi Gazette 2017
