Special Report
Stylish dining in private
Saudia Private Aviation’s new fleet has taken an exciting new range of tableware on board. Jo Austin and Patrick Murray report
Helios is particularly proud of its recent work with SPA (Saudia Private Aviation) in designing and developing brand new catering service equipment for the two very different aircraft types used by SPA. “For the Falcon 7X,” says Laith Baltaji, regional
vp, Helios, “we came up with an outstanding table service from the German fine bone china manufacturer Dibbern and offered a full 18-piece set of chinaware and a wonderful six-piece design of stainless steel cutlery. Even in the best restaurants around the globe, you would not expect such an amazingly luxurious service.” SPA is part of Saudi Arabian Airlines, both supplied by Saudia Catering (Newrest Group). It has a new fleet which as well as the Falcon 7X, also includes the Hawker 400XP. The Hawker is relatively small, with space for just six passengers. The galley annexe is just opposite to the entry
“We came up with an outstanding table service from the German fine bone china manufacturer Dibbern”
door; it has no oven or coffee maker, but does have hot water storage. It also has a number of drawers and compartments throughout the aircraft to store food and drink items. “In other words,” says Laith, “the 16-passenger Falcon 7X is the perfect aircraft for a luxurious service while the Hawker 400XP is more limited in terms of space and on-board facilities and therefore requires a cold, quick and compact service; when there is no crew on board this becomes self-service.” Saudia Catering asked for the help of Helios to come up with a solution for the entire catering service of the new SPA brand. “For the Hawker 400XP, we came up with a luxurious box service: a black ebony varnished wooden box, containing different sizes of chinaware bowls with lids (modular system
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according to the time of day), stainless steel cutlery in envelopes, glass, linen napkin with stainless steel napkin ring, menu reference card, pepper & salt, and all wrapped-up with a lovely personalised SPA banderol. In addition, we conceived a spectacular cooler bag to carry the boxes and a wonderful linen drawstring bread basket.”
Commenting on the new serviceware, Ayman
Above top and centre: Fine bone china from Germany by Dibbern; bottom: Passengers on the Hawker aircraft are served their meal in designer boxes with freshly-baked hot rolls from a bag-basket
A. Al-hilali, Jeddah-based Saudi Catering sales manager said: “Our first project was designing boxes to hold an entire meal. They were designed for the small Hawker aircraft carrying just six people. Each box contains a china plate with cold sandwiches, salad and dessert plus cutlery and fine linen but not yet glasses, which are still under consideration. We can load up to six boxes in specially-designed thermobags (two bags containing three boxes each), and as passengers are not expecting food this is a really nice surprise for them. “In additon, we serve hot, freshly baked rolls in stylish bag-baskets, another nice surprise for the passengers. The larger aircraft can carry up to 16 passengers, but is not normally full which enables us to serve each passenger at seat. The way that we chose Helios as our tableware supplier was that I first started talking with them at ITCA in Nice in 2008 where we were highly impressed with their designs, and this is the very pleasing end result.”
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