Flying with Saudia to India

MUC – CCJ

 

Saudia Airlines tempted me with an unbeatable offer: 490 euros Munich-Kochi, Delhi-Munich. And 2 pieces of luggage with no weight limit. About 2 weeks before departure, the obstacles started: I received a message that the flight had been cancelled and that I should contact the airline. This contact was a little complicated: after exchanging emails several times, the mailer decided that I should definitely call. But at least we had found an alternative: 1 day earlier and directly to Kozhikode, where I wanted to go anyway, but didn’t know that they had an international airport. airport. The person I called wanted to email me and then a 10-day email exchange began, in which I was promised the alternative flight but not confirmed. I had to laugh. It was the first time I had faced a flight problem as a tour operator that I didn’t quite know how to solve.

 

And then suddenly I had the confirmed flight ticket and took off at 5:15 in the morning, where friends from the village drove me to the nearest railway station because my little train wanted to sleep in on Sundays. More than 24 hours later, I was finally where I wanted to be.

And had already experienced a lot by then:

• Travelling luck smiled on me and gave me a three-seater at the emergency exit all to myself!
• At Jeddah airport, my search for a suitable power socket was in vain. And I had 10 hours to kill. Contrary to my expectations of being at a great airport, this part only had 12 gates, was packed with people, the wifi wanted to send me a PIN to my Indian mobile phone, but it never arrived. The flight took off 1 hour late. My luck ran out.
• At just before 4:00 (departure 3:15) boarding started and a crowd of people behaved very ‘Indian’. I learnt why Saudia Kozhikode operates: the plane was super full of people who had done the Hajj. The women belonged to 3 different groups, recognisable by their uniform head wrap colours. They didn’t care about the seat number and jumped here and there. The cabin crew tried to keep their composure.
• But I robbed them of that when everyone was finally seated where they belonged, we started the film and the headphones were handed out. I really wanted to watch the film. But the headphones didn’t fit into the socket. I was moved, but the film programme didn’t work in the whole row. I wanted to go back, but they wanted to serve food. And that’s when I got the evil eye.
• Shortly before arrival, my seat neighbour told me that Kozhikode has a particularly short runway and that he always felt a bit queasy. I agreed with him.
• On arrival, I realised that apart from me, there was only one other non-Indian on the plane. An airport assistant wanted to fill out my entry form in detail and even googled the telephone numbers of the people here, which I forgot to write down. I was the last person in the queue. The passport officer was very friendly, but a bit overwhelmed with my entry. The colleague had to be consulted.
• I was the last one at the baggage belt. It was far too small for the masses of people from the plane and there was a lot of pushing and shoving. The pilgrims had done a lot of shopping and countless parcels, bags and suitcases passed by. Everyone left happily at some point.
• Except me: my one piece of luggage wasn’t there. Another very friendly person filled out a form. I was optimistic.
• And when I arrived at the local people’s office, they were a little surprised at the late time….

It went on positively, but the best part was the shower! What a pleasure! We made lots of plans and the next blog posts will probably be about that. My conclusion about Saudia? The unbeatable price had a catch.