Hello from Saudi Arabia, as I just flew Saudia’s Boeing 787-10 business class on the 5hr20min flight from Amsterdam (AMS) to Jeddah (JED), as I continue my review trip.
I don’t want to bury the lede — this flight absolutely blew my mind in terms of how good it was. If you can get over the lack of alcohol, this has to be one of the best business class soft products in the world. What a contrast to my Saudia flight around a decade ago — at the time, it would’ve been a compliment to call the airline second rate.
Gone are the days where there are half a dozen “local” male flight attendants just lounging around in business class seats and being served meals before passengers. Heck, some may remember my Saudia first class flight a long time ago, where the crew was unhappy that I “stole” the cabin manager’s seat (which… was my assigned seat, but he wanted to just store all of his things there).
Anyway, I can’t express enough how impressed I am. Let me share some initial thoughts, and then soon I’ll have a full review. it’s always nice to see an airline truly elevating its passenger experience, and that’s exactly what I witnessed here.
In this post:
The food presentation and service items were among the nicest I’ve ever seen in business class.
For the starter I had the smoked salmon with red chicory leaves and saffron potatoes. Real talk, have you ever seen a nicer smoked salmon dish served in business class? I haven’t. Airlines love to talk about serving restaurant quality food, but this truly fell in that category.
For the main course, I went for the Saudi option, which was the chicken mandi, with roasted chicken, caramelized onion, raisins, and red dakous sauce. This dish was brilliant, and very flavorful.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.




