Category: Travel

Back in 2014, the Pearl Lounge at the main airport terminal got redesigned and I hated it. The lounge looked cheap and dated while the seats were pretty uncomfortable to sit in. But, a couple of weeks back the lounge finally got a makeover and it now looks better than it ever did.

The new color scheme, the style of seating and the choice of floor tiles give the space a much-needed facelift. The lounge now looks more premium and stylish than before, and by moving the food into the middle of the lounge they were able to break the large space without having to put up any dividers.

Accessing the lounge is the same as before which is either by flying business class on certain airlines or with a credit card. I used Priority Pass to gain access but for a list of other cards accepted click here.

Last year when self check-in kiosks started appearing at the airport they were only working with Turkish Airlines. This past weekend though I noticed the check-in machines have started working with more airlines including:

Emirates
Middle East Airlines
Qatar Airways
Saudia

So now if you’re heading to Dubai or Beirut for the weekend with just a carry-on, you don’t have to wait in line at the check-in counters, you can just print your own boarding pass yourself at the kiosks.

Kuwait’s first official Rimowa store opened a couple of weeks ago at the Avenues and I was curious to check out their prices. I bought a Rimowa bag from the Dubai store a couple of months back and so was curious to know the price difference between the two stores. Surprisingly, Kuwait is cheaper!

The Kuwait store is 5% cheaper than the Dubai store and the reason for that is the new 5% taxes you pay on items in Dubai. So a Rimowa Original Cabin size bag in silver aluminum costs KD325 in Dubai after-tax, but KD310 in Kuwait. Not that much of a difference but still a saving. So if you were trying to figure out if you should buy a Rimowa bag locally or abroad, you now know.

Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) took feedback from the popular TripIt app and determined the results of the Passenger Choice Awards and the Official Airline Rating. Kuwait Airways ended up getting an5-star airline rating which sounds like a big thing, but technically, the lowest it could have scored on this list was a 4. Still, a 5-star rating puts it ahead of airlines like British Airways and Etihad Airways which both scored a rating of 4. It’s a small victory but still an important one since it shows how quickly Kuwait Airways has changed for the better now that they’ve got the newer planes and a dedicated terminal.

Here are the results of the Passenger Choice Awards:

Best Seat Comfort – Qatar Airways
Best Entertainment – Emirates
Best Wi-Fi – Delta Air Lines
Best Cabin Service – Qatar Airways
Best Food and Beverage – Qatar Airways

On a side note, Kuwait Airways also came ninth in flights timing accuracy between 175 airlines according to the UK’s Official Aviation Guide (OAG).

For the full APEX results click here.

I recently joined the Rimowa world by purchasing my first Rimowa suitcase last month and I loved it so much I ended up buying a second bag when I visited the Rimowa store in Dubai. Their stores are pretty cool (for a suitcase store) with lots of different accessories you can buy from limited edition stickers to customizable parts. Now Kuwait is getting it’s first store and it will be opening up in Avenues Phase 4, right next to the VOX Cinema escalators.

My main travel suitcase for the last decade has been my indestructible black Tumi. I’ve traveled with it all over the world and loved it so much I even posted about it on the blog a few years ago. But, around five years ago I spotted a beautiful aluminum Rimowa bag with another traveler at the airport, it was dented, scratched up and I just fell in love with the look. I decided once my Tumi fell apart I’d buy one but that day didn’t seem like it was ever going to come since my Tumi just wouldn’t die on me. So last week, I decided to forcefully retire my Tumi.

A friend of mine wanted to buy a Rimowa polycarbonate bag so I tagged along with her to the dealer. While at the store I found out that they had just gotten a new shipment of silver range of aluminum bags. The dealer tends to get a limited number of them (in this case it was 2 of each size) and the silver ones tend to sell out quickly. I was already tempted as is but they also had a silent sale going on so the bag I wanted was selling for slightly less than it did online AND to top it off, the dealer had gotten last years model (the Topas) with the now discontinued “Electronic Tag” feature which I’ve been fascinated with ever since they launched it. So I decided to take the plunge and get the bag (yes I used the word plunge here for buying a bag, but you’ll understand why later when I talk about the price).

I really think this is the hottest looking bag you can buy period. I haven’t packed it away in my cupboard yet and so every time I pass by it I can’t help but admire the design. The bag is made of aluminum and is held together by rivets. It’s a thin sheet of metal so the suitcase tends to dent which although sounds like a negative, is actually one of the reasons people are attracted to it. Bags will get worn out and scratched up with travel, but the more worn out and scratched up the Rimowa bags get, the more interesting and personalized they start looking. It’s why other manufacturers have also started introducing aluminum suitcases as well.

Then you have the “Electronic Tag” feature. This was Rimowa’s innovative idea where they wanted to replace the paper barcode tags they stick on luggage with digital versions. The idea was you’d check-in your suitcase and the airline would wirelessly transmit the tag to your luggage and it would be displayed on the screen. Only 4 airlines ever signed up to it and the idea never took off so Rimowa discontinued it last year. But, what I was interested in was the ability to customize that screen. You see Rimowa also allowed you to upload whatever personal information and image you wanted to that screen using their app. That’s why I wanted the “Electronic Tag” and that’s the first thing I did when I got the bag. The screen now has my name, email and phone number, with an image of my previous car which I had taken.

The screen magically doesn’t require any batteries to display the image. It uses two AAA batteries to power the Bluetooth connection, but once you transfer over the image and data, you can just remove the batteries and the screen will stay on indefinitely. No idea how that works, I still need to read up on the screen technology but I love it. But, although the screen is one way of customizing my bag, I still need to put a few stickers on it and I have a lot saved up to choose from.

The reason why it’s taken me so long to buy this bag isn’t only because my Tumi was refusing to die, but also because these bags are so freakin’ expensive. The bag I got isn’t really big, I think it’s their smallest check-in size and with the 10% discount they had, the bag cost me KD280. That’s really expensive and even when I made up some random maths in my head to try and convince myself that it made sense (280 spread over 10 years is just 28 a year!), it still didn’t make any sense. But, it’s something I’ve wanted for some time now and since I didn’t travel over Eid I figured at least I could buy a new suitcase.

One interesting thing I found out is that Jashanmal will no longer be the dealers for Rimowa in Kuwait which is why they currently have the bags discounted. This was the last shipment of Rimowa bags the dealer will be getting and that’s because last year the company LVMH (they own Louis Vuitton and a gazillion other premium brands) purchased Rimowa. So the dealership in Kuwait is now changing hands and my guess is that Habchi & Chalhoub, the company that has LV in Kuwait will be taking over the brand. They also have the rights for the Tumi brand in Kuwait, so no idea how that’s gonna work out for them.

If you’re interested in a Rimowa suitcase then this might be a good time to get one with their discounts. They’re available at the Jashanmal store in Kuwait City as well as their store in Avenues “Around the World”.

Yesterday Jazeera Airways announced they are going to start flying to London starting October 27th. There will be daily flights and the trip to London will take 6 hours and 20 minutes while the journey back will take 7 hours and 5 minutes.

Jazeera Airways will fly their Airbus A320 neo to London which isn’t a big plane and they fly in and out of Gatwick not Heathrow. I picked out a random date to check out the price (November 1 going, November 4 return) and compared it with BA and Kuwait airways and this is what I got:

Jazeera Airways: KD 99.050
British Airways: KD 132.800
Kuwait Airways: KD 135.600

So you’re saving around KD 30 in this case although I’ve seen Kuwait Airways flights as low as KD 113. Too soon to tell if this will be a good option to fly to London, I’d be curious to read peoples reviews once they’ve started the route.

When Kuwait Airways introduced their new fleet back in 2016 my initial impression of their business class was that it didn’t look premium and it felt overcrowded with their 2-2-2 seat configuration. My favorite business class configuration has always been the Qatar Airways 1-2-1 arrangement on their 787 Dreamliners and it looks like Kuwait Airways will be adopting a similar setup on their new planes.

According to a recent press release, Kuwait Airways will be installing B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats on their upcoming A330-800neo which are the seats used on airlines like Qatar Airways and Virgin. The current seats in comparison are the regular B/E Aerospace Diamond seats so it’s going to be a really good upgrade.

Kuwait Airways is expecting to enter 8 A330-800neo aircraft into service in 2020.

One of the contributing writers at the aviation news website SimplyFlying.com recently passed through the Kuwait Airport. While passing through he visited 3 of the 4 lounges in the airport and did a quick review. He missed the Emirates Derwaza Lounge but I’m guessing thats because he wasn’t aware of it since it’s fairly hidden.

If you’ve never been inside the lounges or just curious to read what he thought of them, here is the link to his article.

I’ve only flown out of the new Jazeera Airways terminal once since it opened and it wasn’t that great of an experience. That was back when their terminal had access to the main terminal where all the restaurants and lounges were. But, shortly after I flew out of the Jazeera terminal, they closed off access to the main terminal which meant passengers could no longer use any of the lounges.

But last week Jazeera finally launched a new lounge for their business class passengers (and some credit card holders) inside their terminal. Not sure if the seating condition in the Jazeera terminal has improved vastly since I was last there, but if its anything close to how it was when I tried the terminal, then this is a much-needed lounge.

Photo by @bo.waleed1

The 2019 annual airline and airport ratings from AirHelp was released last week. Both Kuwait Airways and the Kuwait Airport scored extremely poorly on their list. Kuwait Airport was ranked as the second worst airport in the world, while Kuwait Airways ranked as the third worst airline.

AirHelp is an organization that specializes in air traveler rights. Their airline’s score is based off which airlines offer the best service, flies on time, and how they treat passengers if problems occur. The AirHelp airport’s score is based on punctuality, service quality and the food and shops options. Below are the top 10 lists for best and worst in each category:

Best Airlines of 2019
10. Emirates
9. Austrian Airlines
8. Luxair
7. WestJet
6. LATAM Airlines
5. Qantas
4. SAS Scandinavian Airlines
3. Aeromexico
2. American Airlines
1. Qatar Airways

Worst Airlines of 2019
10. Adria Airways
9. Aerolineas Argentinas
8. Transavia
7. Laudamotion
6. Norwegian
5. Ryanair
4. Korean Air
3. Kuwait Airways
2. EasyJet
1. Thomas Cook Airlines

Here is a link to the full list.

Best Airports of 2019
10. Viracopos/Campinas International Airport, Brazil
9. Tenerife North Airport, Spain
8. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, India
7. Changi Airport Singapore, Singapore
6. Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia
5. Gdansk Lech Wałęsa Airport, Poland
4. Afonso Pena International Airport, Brazil
3. Athens International Airport, Greece
2. Tokyo International Airport, Japan
1. Hamad International Airport, Qatar

Worst Airports of 2019
10. London Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom
9. Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Canada
8. Porto Airport, Portugal
7. Paris Orly Airport, France
6. Manchester Airport, United Kingdom
5. Malta International Airport, Malta
4. Henri Coanda International Airport, Romania
3. Eindhoven Airport, Netherlands
2. Kuwait International Airport, Kuwait
1. Lisbon Portela Airport, Portugal

Here is a link to the full list.

I’ve already mentioned this before but I think it’s pretty harsh having our airport and airline rank that bad. Yeah, they’re not great but I wouldn’t consider them the worst in the world. On the other hand, Qatar Airways and Qatar’s airport both came in first place on both lists. This I can agree on.

I’m currently in Dubai courtesy of Ferrari. They’ve put me up in the gorgeous and very lavish Bvlgari Resort, and they’ve given me access to two cars to drive, their new Ferrari Portofino and the Ferrari 812 SuperFast. I actually have a lot of work back in Kuwait and shouldn’t really be here, but how could I say no to this right? When they first got in touch with me about this trip I was excited obviously but in my head I was also thinking, ok so I’ve already test driven these two cars, and I’ve already posted them on the blog, so how can I post about them again? Then it hit me, I could do Jebel Jais!

Jebel Jais is a mountain in the UAE with an elevation of nearly 2,000m. I found out about it from the popular car show Top Gear, (or maybe it was The Grand Tour?) and ever since I’ve wanted to drive it. The mountain has an incredible 3-lane winding road that takes you to the very top and is usually featured in “Top Roads You Need to Drive on Before You Die” style of lists. There isn’t anything on top, the bottom or along the way to the top, it’s just an empty beautiful road to nowhere.

I’ve contemplated shipping my Lotus to Dubai before so I could do the Jebel Jais drive but it was just too costly. I even considered maybe including it as part of a Oman drive where I’d ship my car to Dubai, do the Jebel Jais drive and then drive to Oman and do a drive there before sending my car back to Kuwait. It never materialized so when Ferrari told me I’d have access to the Portofino for a day I thought to myself, that would be a great car to drive up the mountain. So I accepted their invitation and here I am in Dubai.

Ferrari dropped off the Portofino yesterday morning to my hotel at around 10AM. I had two conditions, the first is I needed to have the car back by 5:30PM, the second is I could only do a maximum mileage of 350KM. Both weren’t going to be an issue. Before coming to Dubai I had already figured everything out, the drive from my hotel to the top of Jebel Jais was 160KM and it would take just over 2 hours. So, 160+160 is 320KM and say a 5 hour total journey time, that would still leave me with time to spare. The calculations worked, I was able to take the car to Jebel Jais, come back to the city, grab and lunch and have the car back at my hotel before 5:30 with around 15KM mileage to spare. It was close, but good enough.

The drive to Jebel Jais was pretty uneventful and boring, but I had a bunch of podcast episodes of Business Wars lined up and that made the time pass by quickly. There were also a ton of cameras along the way so I just put the cruise-control on the highway limit of 120KM and just cruised to Jebel Jais. Once I got to the bottom of Jebel Jais, I dropped the top down, put my favorite Spotify music playlist on and just blasted my way up the mountain.

There was no one, just me, the mountain and the incredible 3-lane winding road with no speed cameras all the way to the top. I loved the drive and the Portofino was just insane on that road. It’s such a fast car and it sounded amazing and aggressive all the way to the top. The temperature was around 28 degrees so it was perfect to drive with the roof down and I think I got a bit of tan as well. The drive up the mountain is around 16KM long and it took me around 20 minutes give or take. I stopped a bit on the way up just to check out the view, but I stopped a lot more on the way down to take some photos of the car.

Once I was back down the mountain I really wanted to just U-turn and make my way up again, but I knew if I did that I would end up exceeding the allotted mileage given to me by Ferrari, and I didn’t want to do that. So I put the roof back up and headed back to the city.

I finally got this drive off my bucket list and I couldn’t have asked for a better car to do it in. It was a difficult choice choosing between the Portofino and 812 SuperFast for the Jebel Jais drive, but I made the right choice because it doesn’t get better than flying up the mountain in a fast loud red Ferrari convertible. Ferrari are now dropping off the 812 SuperFast in a few minutes so if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, sorry but I’m in a rush!

Jazeera Airways will begin flights from Kuwait City to London Gatwick using an Airbus A320neo this year. The Kuwait-based carrier said. Thanks to the aircraft’s additional range, the flying radius from Kuwait has increased to 6.5 hrs. [Source]

I wonder how much cheaper the flight would be with Jazeera compared to British Airways and Kuwait Airways? I just found a ticket for KD113 on Kuwait Airways and KD118 with British Airways, so I’m assuming a ticket with Jazeera would be less than KD100.

This past Thursday I flew in and out of Terminal 4 with Kuwait Airways. The last time I flew out was around 6 months ago and when I did I posted about it. Since then, some things have changed, so here is an update on the airport today:

Firstly parking, I previously posted that parking is no longer free at T4. But, what you need to make sure of is that you don’t park your car in the short term parking lot by mistake when traveling, even if it’s just for a day. The tricky part is the entrances to all the parking lots look the same except for a small sign at the gate that mentions if its short term or long term. There are also multiple entries to the short term lot but just one for the long term, so it’s easy to park in the wrong lot. If you look at the map below I’ve highlighted the location of the long term lot.

The first time I flew out of T4, the self-check-in machines weren’t working. They work now and I was able to check in and print my boarding pass from one of the self-check-in machines, and then just head towards passport control directly.

Terminal 4 was packed when I was there Thursday morning. I think I actually prefer flying out of the main terminal because it no longer feels busy with Kuwait Airways no longer operating from there. T4 doesn’t have enough seating and the airport feels super packed because it’s so small and busy.

Right now the terminal duty-free area is going under major construction (pictured on top), but the following places are open:

Small temporary duty-free shop
WHSmith (a really nice one)
Blend It Kiosk
Costa kiosk
Starbucks kiosk

The following restaurants and cafes are planning to open up soon based on the hoardings I saw:

Cafe Coco
Caribou Coffee
Le Pain Quotidien
McCafe
McDonald’s

I spotted three lounges this time at the airport. Bayan Lounge, Al-Mubarakiya Lounge and a Transit Lounge. Previously the Al-Mubarakiya lounge was only for business class passengers, I think that’s changed now because there was a long queue outside the Al-Mubarakiya lounge when I passed by. I couldn’t check and see what cards would get you into the lounge but according to the Kuwait Airways page, it costs KD9 to enter it if you don’t have a card.

On arrival, the airport was empty since we were the only plane that had arrived at the time. So passport control was a breeze and it didn’t take long for me to be back at my car. This is really the biggest plus for me over the main terminal, a much nicer arrival hall.

Overall not a terrible experience, I just wish the airport had more seating areas (or preferably, a lot fewer people).

According to OAG, the air travel intelligence company, the Dubai to Kuwait City route is the 10th busiest international air travel route in the world with 14,581 flights between March 2018 to February 2019. That’s pretty crazy considering how small the population of Kuwait is.

The #1 spot on the other hand went to the Kuala Lumpur to Singapore route with 30,187 flights during the same period.

1 Kuala Lumpur – Singapore 30,187
2 Hong Kong – Taipei 28,447
3 Jakarta – Singapore 27,046
4 Hong Kong – Shanghai 20,678
5 Jakarta – Kuala Lumpur 19,741
6 Seoul – Osaka 19,711
7 New York City – Toronto 17,038
8 Hong Kong – Seoul 15,770
9 Bangkok – Singapore 14,698
10 Dubai – Kuwait City 14,581

For more details and the full lists, visit the OAG Website.