Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will complete its pre-Haj operations as last Haj flight from Benazir Bhutto International Airport carrying last batch of 468 Hujjaj will leave for Jeddah on Tuesday.
PIA starts its month-long pre-Haj flight operations on November 2, to airlift more than 160,000 intending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for Haj-2008 and it will conclude on Tuesday with the departure of last flight PK-1661 carrying 468 passengers, sources said on Monday.
Two flights will leave for Jeddah on Tuesday including PK-1159 and PK-1661 with 320 and 468 passengers on board, sources at Religious Affairs Ministry told this scribe. They said the PIA airlifted 129,392 intending pilgrims by 381 special and commercial flights, out of which 107,093 pilgrims reached Jeddah by 333 flights from Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Faisalabad.
They said that about 22,299 pilgrims were directly transported to Madina through 48 flights, adding that 16 flights were operated from Karachi, 16 from Lahore and 16 from Islamabad airports. The post Haj flight operation would start from December 12, and conclude on January 11, 2009, they added.
They said that besides PIA, Saudi Airline transported 11,765 intending pilgrims to Jeddah from Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi airports through its 48 flights. They said that the Hujjaj were provided travel documents, foreign exchange at their arrival in the Haji Camps and were brought to the airports by special transport arranged by the respective Haji camps. The Religious Affairs Ministry also provided literature about Haj rituals to Hujjaj to help them to perform Manasik-e-Haj in an appropriate manner.
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