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Got a Kuwait Airways ticket? Here’s what you need to know

Kuwait Airways is currently on strike and if you’ve got tickets you’re out of luck. According to a reader, right now they’re not refunding tickets neither are they helping passengers find other flights. According to a Kuwait Airways employee if you need to travel then you need to book a flight with another airline yourself. Only once the strike is over then refunds or ticket change of dates will take place.

Teachers have also joined Kuwait Airways and Customs in the strikes. They’re planning on having a sit in tomorrow (Sunday). [Source]

Thanks Stani and Asmaa

Update: According to a reader who had a 3PM fight to Dubai booked via Kuwait Airways. His flight was cancelled due to the strike but Kuwait Airways transferred his tickets to a 6PM flight on Emirates without paying anything.

67 replies on “Got a Kuwait Airways ticket? Here’s what you need to know”

Not school teachers, its the university and college professors and instructors whom are going to strike tomorrow.

I don’t know how will that affect the academic, for sure students will be happy with the sudden holiday, but it means more intense work for all after the strike is over.

xD last time it was for the iPhone 4s.

On a serious note yes its because of salaries, as if people here aren’t paid enough. Show me a school teacher anywhere on this planet that makes the same amount school teacher here do, sure its not as much as other jobs here but its certainly a lot higher than what the ones around the world make.

Checkout the salary of any of the Indian school teachers out there. Their average pay is 150 KD.
But they ain’t got no right to strike, take it or leave it…..

Does anyone else think this will lead to a belated uprising of the working class? “Democracy, not an Aristocracy” and all that? :-s

I just hope this all blows over nice and easy…

A lot of KAC employees have been ignored for years and have never received the raises and benefits which they rightfully deserve for quite a long time. Mostly due to the fact that KAC has been losing a lot of $$ for years now, which is not exactly their fault either.

True, unless they get a modern fleet like Qatar or Etihad airways, there is nothing can be done to prevent this company going downhill.

All crap every year there is a raise doesn’t matter there is a loss after all it’s still govt owned !
The union is shit scared of privatisation !!

Besides all this it’s just a shame for such employees cos what pay they get no other country pays off !
The govt has bend back wards to make them satisfy but it’s like the more u give it’s less !!

God bless Kuwait !

Yes but you’ll NEVER privatize it successfully if you have that many employees you need to pay for and now they’re raising the salaries involved – they’re going to have a much harder time selling it now.

Fire the CEO of Kuwait Airways! Privatise it! and streamline the carrier! Deal with the union. KA is a reflection of the status of the Kuwait government when it lands overseas and if this carrier is flying on it’s last wing, the government is ineffective. Get Kingfisher in here, it appears there needs to be more Indian-route carriers.

They Cannot successfully privatize the Airline, It’s not exactly government owned, yes the Kuwaiti government does supply it with money, but the KAC is Shared by Several famous Kuwaiti Business families. If they want to Privatize this, they need to pay the founders of the company .

@Dreamer – ‘Shared by Several famious Kuwaiti Business families’ who shouldn’t be running an airline carrier. It was rumoured that the run-down status of the carrier was orchestrated by influential people in Kuwait so they could buy it cheap. Who would want to degrade their country like that?

Aah… the penny drops….

That explains why the KAC employees ignore the poor saps… sorry passengers… who fly on KAC… they are just passing on the good deed…

And of course such poor service levels resulting from these actions don’t have anything whatsoever to do with the airlines losing money….

Bravo…. Great logic..

A bunch of Kuwaiti students studying in the US including me booked our tickets from New York to Kuwait on KA, I just checked, and my flight is still scheduled for this friday..

if this is true, our plan is ruined, as we were about to surprise our family and friends during the spring break! 😛

Yet more reasons why I will never fly Kuwait Scareways.

At the very least, the airline management should step in and help travelers who have tickets. Hey – hire a travel management company (and there are several good ones in Kuwait like Alshamel) to step in and handle it temporarily until the strike is over. You just don’t leave customers stranded.

Reminds me of the 70s little Britain with industrial action erupting all over the place like a mean skin rash. I mean, seriously, it’s going to take someone like the Iron Lady (or more likely a man for the Kuwaiti context) to fix the unions right.

“neither are they helping passengers find other flights”.
Hahaha! Since when does the verb ‘help passengers’and Kuwait airways go together. They never do.

They are never, ever going to successfully sell KAC lol, they keep pulling shit like this and it’s already a massive money sink.

Why do morons keep paying for and flying on KAC? There are over 1,000 reasons not to fly them. Everybody comes to Kuwait because its a lazy country…work, eat, sleep, save money. If you go on strike, which is a dumb move, ship these people back to their original country and move on. Why go on strike??? You make good money here.

What I detest about Kuwait International Airport is that they refuse to hire people to walk around the airport (possibly with shirts that read ‘May I help you?) to assist passengers. Why is this SO HARD? I can see the chaos now, there is probably no one at the Kuwait Airways desk to help these people and they probably will not leave the airport until they board ‘those flights’. KIA increases chaos by their mismanagement also.

Kuwait Airways is a wholly government owned corporation. It is not run by several business families as some moron said! Kuwait airways salaries are the lowest in the region, and contrary to what another moron said, the workers do not get yearly pay raises! The airline is badly run and suffers from much government meddling. A brand new homogenous fleet will go along way to sorting out a lot of problems, but the underlying management incompetence and governmental restrictions will still remain. It needs to be privatized to minimize governmental interference, remove incompetent management, and reduce redundant and non- productive staff.

KA is grossly overstaffed with no firing. Once its privatized the workers will get 5 years salary if they decide to leave. The deadweight has stayed on for the payout.

Poor upper management coupled with interference from both the govt and parliament is what got it to this level and there’s a lot of employees who have been suffering due to this. The overstaffed part is true, however the company has been going downhill even before that.

Now the Parliament needs to formulate another government subcommittee that deals with Kuwait Airways and another committee to deal with the Kuwait International Airport. (ie the navigation equipment that hasn’t been upgraded for 25 years) These two entities make or break this nation and it is their responsibility to overhaul both of them for the safety of all passengers.

I know for a fact staff working at 171 getting paid 750 who started from 250 (expatriate salary)! So I don’t know from where these shit morons come up with such facts ! Comparing salaries with other airlines in region, say for example emirates they might even get paid same or even more but the cost living is high in Dubai ! That’s why Kuwait is a place to save money!

If talking about Wataniya airways salary who had offered almost thrice the salaries compare to KA then for a fact we know the tragic end of the airline !

Now coming to the fact it’s not the airline or govt problem if ppl start spending beyond their limit ! And at the end govt pays off all the loans ! I have never ever heard in my life any govt has paid off loans of citizens !

“I know for a fact staff working at 171 getting paid 750 who started from 250 (expatriate salary!”

And your point being?
So everyone should stop asking for what they deserve because this one guy you know makes 750kd. LMAO you are clueless!

“Comparing salaries with other airlines in region, say for example emirates they might even get paid same or even more but the cost living is high in Dubai ! That’s why Kuwait is a place to save money!”
“Now coming to the fact it’s not the airline or govt problem if ppl start spending beyond their limit ! And at the end govt pays off all the loans ! I have never ever heard in my life any govt has paid off loans of citizens !”

People are demanding the pay raises they LAWFULLY deserve. This is an issue in KAC which has been going on since the 90’s and nothing is being done. and FYI, inflation in Kuwait has increased over 30% in the last 5 years. It has nothing to do with people spending over their limit.
And when the hell did the govt pay off people’s loans?

Stop talking BS cause you obviously have no clue what the hell you’re saying.

seriously what newspaper did u read that about the government paying out loans.. was it the “shit i come up with daily news” . You never heard of it means it never happened.. and 750 kd would sound a lot if i was 12yrs old.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for lifetime. Give a man a mutated fish from polluted sea and you’ll have him ask for more.

I flew KAC the first time I came to Kuwait and have not even thought about it since!! Crap plane, crap service, crap attitudes all leads to a crap experience. I now fly Qatar and/or Emirates.

i dont get that…
somebody should have the courage to fire the strikers and move forward… things cannot continue at that pace, one strike per month…
the major problem in Kuwait: all these sectors should be privatized and run like companies, rather than government organizations… yes, including customs… i would love to hear of a good story where customs did their job rightfully and were needed… all i see is just done to delay shipments and cause harm to local businesses…

OH btw these salaries would be hiked after all it’s going to be compensated from the $500 million dollar compensation agreed by Iraqi airways !

That would be a first if it were true. Government has to employ Kuwaitis if no one else will – otherwise they’ll have a bigger problem on their hands.

they can be fired? well they should… this is not a job for life… and this is the main problem in governmental jobs…

i would say the government should employ kuwaitis for sure, but qualified ones who work for the benefit of the country, not their own…

Yes, if you exceed the maximum number of days allowed for absence. Also, you can be fired for going on strike, which is illegal. Although Kuwaitis have been fired before, these laws are rarely enforced.

Kuwait Airways is the national carrier of the state.

The negligence it is receiving is horrible.

I agree with privatization. If you want to survive, you need to perform.

Currently, it’s on life support.

My cousin who was supposed to travel tomorrow from India, informed me that the KA staff postponed the ticket till thursday. They told him mostly the strike will be finished by then 🙁

It is all assumption….and very easy to make from outside Kuwait. Here they are behaving as if they are going to operate from tonight all the flights and at the same time do not know how to handle the stranded passengers at airport…very pity

Im at the airport right now and my 3:00 pm flight got canceled due to the strike. They transfered mu tickets to the 6:00 pm flight on emirates air with out paying anything. Whole process took half n hour.

@Reality..you are lucky passenger….We were booked for 9:10 pm Kochi flight. First they asked for tkt confirmation from any other airline. We took confirmation from Emirates for 6 pm flight. When our turn came, the rude staff at counter said they have only order to transfer passengers till 4.30 pm Tehran flights. It took 1 hour to reach our turn to the counter…3:00 pm staff were co-operative not later ones….U lucky chap…All the best that you are out of Kuwait airport by Emirates…Bon voyage…

There needs to be an immediate increase in flights to India in this country. That is the problem. Kingfisher is bankrupt and Ethiad won’t buy them, so let them fly out of Kuwait and pay their debt themselves and regain their airline. I’m not sure, but another Indian carrier is Jet Airways. If they utilized the Royal Terminal properly they could increase flights at the KIA terminal. Emirates/Ethiad and Qatar should be able to move to the Royal Terminal and leave the rest of the carriers at KIA.

Mark you are better than any newspaper in this country who has the complete inability to update the news on their websites in a timely manner like gulfnews in the UAE. Keep us updated, Thank you.

without paying anything? just 7 hours of his life hell never get back,,, he should send kuwait airways a thank you card ;p

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