so how was i doing in riyadh?
here's what you need to know:
i was the only malaysian going to cairo stuck there. no kidding okay. there were another group of malaysian i bumped as well, but they were flying off to london.
and because of that almost all the staff there knew me by name. in fact, when i reached riyadh i directly went to the praying room and decided to bunk there for the night since i had 14 hours until my flight. 2 hours before the departure i went to the gate only to find out my flight was cancelled!
so i confronted the guy at the gate and the first word he asked me was "are you miss pink?"
"err.. yes i am"
"we've been looking for you! come with me"
"wait. what? hang on. tell me why is my flight is cancelled first. where are you going? hey wait for meeeeee!!!"
so i followed him to the information counter and another guy told me that my flight was scheduled to the evening. GAH! so that was when i told him whether i could get a hotel or something since by evening i would be staying in the airport for more than 24 hours already and he told me that i would get access to the business class lounge.
wow. that was easy, i thought. i was only demanding for hotel so at least they would haggle it down to something "smaller" (like, the lounge wtf). at least i would be comfortable in there and most importantly, THERE WOULD BE FREE WIFI!
so that was how i ended up in the business class lounge. right there and then, i still didn't know what was going on in cairo until i logged into my twitter and saw a junior retweeting a news link of the strike in the airport. -___-"
to cut the story short, my flight was delayed for three times but this time i wasn't complaining because surprisingly i was treated well by the staff there (compared to the last time i flew with them when i was going back to malaysia). every few hours, one staff would come and ask me if i am okay. and since i was in the lounge, obviously i got to eat anything prepared there which were way better than what they were serving to the passengers on the plane wtf.
but since i was agitated and cranky and moody and all i wanted was to reach cairo as soon as possible, i didn't feel like eating. at all. also, i started to feel slightly feverish.
that was when those guys managing the lounge were getting worried lololololol. they were concerned that i "wasn't taking any food" and kept asking me whether i was "okay or not?". at one point, the staff even brought me food and put it in front of me, asking me to eat it since i hadn't have anything for almost 20 hours. sumpah aku rasa macam ditatang bak minyak yang penuh. :')
and after the third scheduled flight was cancelled, the manager came down to see me and offered me hotel accomodation but since i was all alone, i refused it (to his dismay hahahaha but it was very safe okay to be alone in a place you weren't familiar with) and requested for a pillow and blanket. it was bloody cold okay i was shivering no shit!
and while i was trying to find a comfortable enough position to (try to) sleep on the sofa, the staff in the lounge came up to me and asked me whether i wanted him to line up few sofa so it could be my temporary bed. he saw my teared up eyes (fine lah, i admit that i was crying silently from underneath, thinking about my luck with saudi airlines wtf but can you blame me for being such a girl in this kind of situation?) and asked me whether i am sure i am okay or not! hahahaha damn touched okay but a bit paiseh at the same time lah.
oh btw, do you know what's the cutest sight i saw in riyadh? when i returned to the lounge from my night stroll around the airport, all the abang abang lounge were sitting in a row, hogging all the computers provided there for the passengers (because no one was there for them to attend la), facebooking each other wtf. HAHAHAHA!
so that was why i was quite okay eventhough i went through such a looooooooooooong delay in the flight. after all, it wasn't really their fault la. blame the egyptians!! grrrr.
but does this change my perceptions towards them after my first bad experience last august?
no. saudi airlines still sucks overall despite their good service and manner this time around. they are well known for flight delayment (especially the ones to kuala lumpur/cairo from riyadh!) so kids, do stay away from this airlines. i repeat, DO NOT GO NEAR THEM AT ALL.
do i regret going through this?
not really. i can safely claim that i am the only malaysian that has gone through this experience LOL. it does teach me something apart from testing my patience big time (which i must say, i did really well this time around HAHAHA), which i should keep it to myself for now. :)
my un-used "cancelled" boarding pass. siapa nak? i am thinking of framing it up and passing it to my granchildren.
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