Saudi airline plots a catch-up course

Air passengers in Saudi Arabia make many of the same complaints as travellers everywhere: long waiting times, cancelled reservations and late arrivals.

But they do so with more than the usual world-weariness – with venom even, especially as they compare their airlines with those of their tiny Gulf neighbours.

In the absence of a nationwide rail network or developed public transport, air travel assumes an even greater significance in a country of 2.1m sq km.