Airline: Royal Jordanian
Flight Number: RJ734
Plane: Airbus A320
Cabin: Business Class
Seat: 1A
This Flight
This is my view of my flight from Amman to Riyadh, flying on Royal Jordanian. This was a continued flight after I flew in from London.
Similarly to my recent experience flying to Jeddah, the flights to Saudi Arabia leave at fairly crushing times, meaning that I was pretty tired when I got to Riyadh and hadn’t slept all night!
RJ734 leaves Amman at 01:10 and lands in Riyadh at 03:30, the flight is about 2.5hrs.
Checking In
I was gate running from the Heathrow flight and had to re-check Security, which was painfully slow.
Fortunately, I was pre-ticketed from Heathrow so once I’d had every item in my hand luggage removed and screened for explosives; and whilst the person in front of me was still arguing a ceramic bowl was a gift); and whilst the person behind me had her baby milk powder tested with utmost suspicion – I walked straight to the Gate, and pretty much straight onto the plane.
The Lounge
Unfortunately due to time I didn’t have time to visit the lounge, however the Crown Class Lounge would have been available, my review of that can be found here.
The Plane
This fairly short flight was on an Airbus A320.
Royal Jordanian’s layouts on the A320 are 16 x Business Class seats and 120 x Economy Seats – in fact the same as Etihad.
The Seat
This seat felt sort of like a first generation Business Class seat, in 2-2 configuration.
The seat has a basic recline function and a button to being the foot rest up. The foot rest button sadly didn’t work.
Charging is via a Euro socket and a USB.
The table is one of those flip out ones, which I found a tad annoying as it dipped in the middle. Fortunately, I had no work to do on my laptop.
Food and Drink
Drinks
It is safe to say flying from Amman to Riyadh was a dry flight.
Before takeoff options of water, orange juice or coffee were on offer. Post takeoff, I was given a rather interesting drink called Matrix Zero Cola. This apparently is a Coke Zero substitute – but I would never have known from taste until they showed me the can!
Food
The food on offer (unlike my flight from Heathrow) was via a tray service. There were a number of options available, and I ultimately settled on the beef sliders – although the Beef Madras was tempting!
Amenities Kit
Perhaps unsurprisingly, for such a short flight no Amenities Kit was offered.
Unlike my recent Etihad flight, there were no blankets or pillows offered! However there were some in the overhead lockers.
Entertainment
This plane did have an in-built entertainment system – however it appeared to be broken.
As a result, after takeoff iPads were handed out, loaded with various entertainment options – but not quite as full as the 787!
Wifi
This plane was not equipped with Wifi, which is seemingly the same as RJ’s 787’s.
Cabin Crew
I found the Cabin Crew to be great on this flight!
They were super friendly and helpful – and keen to get the meal service turned around quickly to try and get maximum sleeping time in for the passengers.
Landing
Landing in Riyadh itself was very straightforward. I was carrying hand luggage, so once through immigration there was no queue.
Sadly, the immigration process was far less than straightforward! Despite registering electronically for the Saudi visa, I had to wait almost an hour in line to have my photo taken (again), and there were only about 20 people in front of me and around 8 officers…. Moving at a snail’s pace would be an understatement!
Conclusion
This was a very short flight, but the seat was very comfortable and the food was pretty decent for this short run.
Perhaps this flight didn’t quite live up to my Etihad A320 standard, but it was still pretty good – and I’d be happy flying on Royal Jordanian’s A320 again!
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