Haj pilgrims to fly directly to Jeddah

Ranchi: A single flight will now connect Ranchi and Jeddah starting tomorrow — a historic occasion for the state’s Haj pilgrims.
For the first time, at 2.50pm tomorrow, a batch of 281 Haj pilgrims from Jharkhand will take off for Jeddah from Ranchi’s Birsa Munda International Airport. No longer will the pilgrims have to make a trip to Calcutta to catch a flight to Saudi Arabia.
All 2,728 Haj pilgrims from across the state will land at Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport courtesy Saudi Arabia’s Nas Airways. The initiative to start the direct flights, 16 each way, was taken by Union food processing minister Subodh Kant Sahay. The Nas Airways Boeing 757 aircraft will land in Ranchi at 11.50am to pick up the first 281 lucky pilgrims, with Sahay flagging off the flight.
“Pilgrims will leave in batches between October 19 and November 3. They will come back between December 19 and December 30,” said Mukhtar Ahmed of the Jharkhand State Haj Committee.
Pilgrims from across the state have already started arriving in the capital, where they are being accommodated at the Haj House in Kadru. Buses have been organised to ferry them to Birsa Munda airport, where a makeshift terminal will facilitate security checks and immigration formalities. Adequate seating arrangements have also been made at the temporary terminal for pilgrims awaiting their flight.
19/10/10 Santosh K. Kiro/The Telegraph

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Categories: airports Oct 2010, Foreign Oct 2010