Saudi Arabian Airlines announced Thursday it would deposit the refund amount of canceled cash tickets in customers’ accounts in seven days.
“The new service will save a lot of time and energy of customers,” said Mohammed Al-Bakri, executive vice president for finance at the airline.
Refund procedures through sales offices used to take several weeks and passengers had to visit Saudia offices several times.
“We’ll stop refund service at sales offices, except for coupons and multiple segment tickets as well as tickets issued outside the Kingdom,” the official said. He said passengers would be able to refund tickets by logging onto www.saudiairlines.com.
However, he pointed out that online refunding of all these tickets would be carried out in the next phase of service shortly. “We are also studying methods to refund tickets issued through credit cards,” Al-Bakri said.
Al-Bakri said the new service was introduced as part of Saudia’s efforts to enhance its services making use of modern technology.
“The new service was developed by Saudi experts who worked as one team,” he said. “We are making continuous efforts to improve our after-sale services,” Al-Bakri added.
Abdul Rahman of Transworld Travel, speaking to Arab News, said: “At present passengers are facing a lot of problems to refund their tickets. We expect more such initiatives from Saudia for the benefit of fliers.”