OERK/RUH - Riyadh - Marriott Riyadh Airport - Marriott Riyadh Airport - June 2025

The only real hope for a hotel with a close view is the Marriott Riyadh Airport; not cheap, £200ish a night.  Immigration had no queue and once e-sim had installed, it seemed that Uber worked so we went to the hotel, dropped bags and Ubered to the rather excellent Saudi Air Force Museum.  We were back at the hotel around 1200 and were granted early check in for an additional £25; a request for a high floor airport view room seemed to cause some amusement but resulted in room 431 which has a reasonable view of the easterly runway, the VIP/biz parking, 6 ex-Saudi 777s and 3? 747s being dismantled all visible in the distance.

We were lucky that they were landing past the hotel; the majority of arrivals were on the westerly runway out of sight from the room, all departures and any biz arrivals were on the easterly runway.  There was plenty of seating out the front of the hotel for smokers which would be a great place to spot movements and overflights if (a) it wasn't 45C and (b) our hobby were understood.  This is not the Proud Bird Restaurant at LAX; using optics, cameras and note taking outside the room would be most unwise!   

The hotel wifi seemed to strangle adsbexchange but 5G didn't and FR24 worked well.  In 24 hours we logged around half of the flynas and flyadeal fleets and there was a reasonable flow of traffic to/from the VIP/biz ramp.

The locals were delightful, very keen to look after us, give us bottles of water etc. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/q3MTAksYKvRqpBRe6

Credit Ian Metson

OEJN/JED - Jeddah - Clarion Hotel - February 2025

Clarion Hotel is located just two miles south of the Airport almost under the approach to the middle of the three runways. The hotel has a roof top pool and bar area and is open from 7am until 2am and during the day barely sees anyone go up there. From here you can see the whole airport in front of you but sightings of aircraft on the airfield itself limited due to the size of it and the clutter of buildings especially from the now closed old terminal building. Sadly no Bizjets on the ground can be seen.

If landing from the South, all arrivals can be read with mini bins but landers on the left need a pole. Not knowing how things would pan out, the pole and FlightAware dongles were left at home and it was left to FR24 (ADSB is blocked in Saudi) to bring everything in which it didn't fail except for the ARAMCO B737s that are super blocked from tracking in most instances. I also don't use a camera, though if you were to bring one, I'm not sure if that would then attract unwanted attention. Anything already in not seen on landing, will likely be missed if departing North as hardly anything plots on the ground before lift off. If they are taking off towards the hotel, then it would all need to be done electronically.  

The hotel itself isn't cheap at around £130 a night plus breakfast at around £18 per person. The evening buffet sells at around £23 a head though a limited bar menu is available to eat on the roof for less that that. Nothing outside nearby so you would need to taxi it somewhere if you don't want to pay those charges.

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Credit Kev Widdowson