Welcome to my last part of my Saudia Airlines Experience!
Introduction
This is my last part of my Saudia Airlines 2026 series and also the last flight of my February trip to visit my family in London. After 3 flights with the airline, I was hoping for a better flight experience with this airline, perhaps lighter load on this flight with a whole row to myself? Did I get my wish, do read on to find out. As you can see the aircraft photo of my ride, this classic livery is growing on me more and I certainly prefer over the old livery. Anyway, without further ado, let's begin this trip report!
My transit at Jeddah Airport
I was very fortunate to be able to depart at this time because a couple of days later, the middle east war between Iran and U.S started and this airport was affected with flight cancellations taken place a couple of days later and if I was affected by the cancellation, it was likely I would ended up flying with airline carrier home or a lengthy extented stay in London was very much possible.
The peaceful atmosphere of the airside.
This way to my assigned gate.
I was hoping for more vacant seats on this flight, did I get my wish? Do read on to find out.
The lighting does looks nice at this airport.
This is Malaysia AIrlines Airbus A330-300ceo, dedicated to my Malaysian friends!
These are the passengers on my flight.
Time to go!
My luggage made it to Jeddah on HZ-AR29 and this same aircraft would fly me to Singapore. It would be unthinkable if the airline failed to put my luggage on board this aircraft. So the million dollar question is did I pick up my luggage at Changi Airport? Do read near the end of the trip report to find out!
It turned out to be a full flight and this was the longer sector compared to the London Gatwick to Jeddah sector.
Welcome back on board HZ-AR29!
My ride: HZ-AR29 in the special world cup livery painted few months after my flight.
(Photo: yh0403_WSSS)
Flight Route: JED-SIN
Distance: 1212 km
Average Flight Time:
Airlines Flying On This Route: Saudia Airlines and Scoot
My seat: 56L
Photo: Aerolopa.com
Airline: Saudia Airlines
Flight: SV856
Flight Route: JED-SIN
Aircraft type: Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
Registration: HZ-AR29
Departure Terminal: 1
Gate: A34
Load: 100%
Flight Time: 8 hours 50 minutes
Actual Flight Time: 8 hours 58 minutes
Boarding: 0042
Push Back: 0137
Take Off: 0150
Schedule Arrival: 1530
Actual Arrival: 1546
Departure Runway: 34R
Departure Weather: Partially Cloudy
Arrival Runway: 20R
Arrival Weather: Partially Cloudy
My flight experience
It turned out to be a full flight with many Muslims were heading home and once I got to my seat, every seat around me for my section was filled up. Fortunately, I was sitting beside a slim young man so it wasn't too bad in terms of legroom space.
Our aircraft pushed back ahead of schedule despite the full load and took off smoothly into the skies. This set of crew seemed to be nice and I saw a few Fillipino cabin crew on board with smiles, that's great. As this was a longer flight sector, I was hoping to grab some sleep on board. I manged to do so but I kept drifting in and out so in the end, I felt more tired especially during our descent into Singapore. At least I didn't have to work on that day and I also took a couple of days off later to get my body readjust to Singapore timing.
Business Class
This is the 1-2-1 herringbone style seat designed by Collins Super Aerospace and there are 24 seats in this aircraft. Since I have covered this on my previous trip reports, I would let One Mile At A Time's review cover this cabin product.
Photo and trip report by One Mile At A Time
Economy Class
You can check out the economy class seats on my previous trip report. (Click here for the trip report)
This amenity kit consists of an eye shade.
A bottle of water was distributed to each passenger before the meal service.
We were given a snack box and a choice of beverage after an hour or so into the flight.
It was certainly tasty.
Hours later before arrival, we were given the second meal, a full meal service.
I chose the chicken option.
This chicken rice was not bad at all.
Inflight Entertainment
I ended up decided on a window seat to rest my head against the window side as I planned to sleep on this flight.
The map route of our flight
Midway through the flight.
Window view photos (Take off to Landing)
Take off from Jeddah on this 8 hours plus journey.
Looking at these photos, I felt relieved that I managed to fly out of there without issues.
One last look at the city before I settled into the flight.
Morning light was out while we were flying near Malaysia Peninsula.
Beautiful weather along the route and during our descent into Changi Airport.
We started our descent and as usual we were placed onto a holding pattern due to heavy traffic at SIN.
We managed to catch glimpse of the islands around Singapore.
We enjoyed this view for quite a number of times due to being placed on a holding pattern. This results to our late arrival into Changi Airport.
Anyone knows which airport does this belong to?
We circled around a few times waiting for traffic clearance to land at Changi.
The view of the runway once again.
Finally, we were given the clearance to start our approach.
We had to fly through some clouds during our descent.
At this point, our aircraft was in landing configuration.
This means we were on final approach onto runway 20R.
Few more seconds to touch down!
We touched down about 15 minutes late.
We taxied towards our assigned gate at terminal 3.
Our aircraft was to rest for a short while before heading over to Denpasar before flying back to this airport later that day and then fly back to Jeddah.
With that, my London trip for February 2026 has come to an end!
The familar sight of the terminal 3's interior.
With an all carpeted area, dragging your carry-on luggage may be a drag.
What I like about my home airport is that immigration process is usually very fast, thanks to the automated machines.
However, we had to wait for a good 15 minutes before the luggage arrived but considering that our immigration process is faster than most airports, this is completely acceptable.
I did a check on the Find My app (IOS), my luggage arrived on the same flight as me.
Hope you enjoyed this trip report! I apologise for my long delay of these trip reports due to work.
For my next trip report: check out my trip report on one of Air Japan's last commercial flights from Singapore to Tokyo Narita! Click here for the trip report.
My ratings
Airline Website/Mobile App: 4/5
Airport Experience (Jeddah Airport): 3/5
Inflight Service: 3/5
Seat Comfort: 4/5
Inflight Entertainment: 3/5
Cabin Ambiance: 4/5
Cabin Condition: 5/5
Cleanliness: 5/5
Inflight Meal/Beverage: 3/5
Punctuality: 3/5
Total Score: 37/50
Percentage: 74%
Conclusion
Apart from the baggage incident, I find the four flights I had with this airline to be quite underwhelming when comparing to my recent Qatar and Emirates economy class experience. However, I have to consider that I was flying during the Ramadan period and majority of the passengers were Muslims and the aircraft were configured with the praying session, I take it as an eye opener to see how it is like, great for someone from another religion.
Let me list down the pros and cons about the flights
Pros
- On time departure and arrival
- Inflight Entertainment was available
- Decent quality inflight meals
- Flight deck crew kept us well updated
Cons
- Average inflight service
- Poor handling of my luggage issue
- Average economy class seats
Which flight did I enjoy the most? It has to be the 2nd flight (787-9 JED-LGW) which I managed to score the whole row to myself, however it was overshadowed by my luggage issue which the luggage was not loaded onto the aircraft and had to wait for 3 days before receiving it. No communication or any form of compensation was given by the airline, this kind of spoils my impression of the airline and as a flight reviewer, I write whatever I have experienced, good or bad, all of you readers out there are curious. Of course, everyone's experience with the airline will be different as there are many factors that plays apart to a good flight such as a good set of crew, that makes a lot of difference when you encounter a set of bad and lazy ones.
Thanks for reading, hope you are enjoying my blog posts so far.
Just in case some of you are wondering why my uploading of posts have been slowed is due to work commitment and it looks more likely I would be grounded for a while in Singapore before my next trip back to Japan for a concert with my favourite singer, Ayumi Hamasaki and a family trip to London probably at the end of the year or early 2027, to be confirmed soon.
Have a good one!
Charles Ryan
For my February 2026 flight trip reports, you can find the links at the start of this trip report. Click here.
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