It is worth mentioning that the first stage (i.e. arrival stage) of Saudia’s pilgrimage plan had been implemented since 1st of Dhul Qadah 1437, and included handling (386.489) pilgrims from both inside and outside the Kingdom, (267.006) of whom arrived to King Abdulaziz International Airport on board (1023) flights, while (119.483) pilgrims arrived to Princne Muhammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport on board (1.560) flights.
The second stage (i.e. departure stage) started on 15th Muharram 1438, and included handling (349.475) pilgrims on board (1.893) flights, (245.284) of whom departed from King Abdulaziz International Airport on board (1.526) flights, while (104.191) departed from Prince Muhammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport on board (367) flights. The last departed flight to Dhakka (SV5710) represented the end of the pilgrimage season for 1437 HA.
Moreover, Saudia had established effective coordination with all the relevant civilian and governmental authorities, in Mecca, Jeddah, and Madinah in order to achieve the highest success rates in organizing pilgrimage. Furthermore, 3500 Saudia’s employees made their best and spare no efforts during the last 70 days to provide world-class service to Saudia’s valued pilgrims in Jeddah and Madinah.
Saudia ramped up its efforts to facilitate travel arrangements for pilgrims during their special spiritual journey by providing more efficient and effective services in the air and on the ground, included: issuing the two-way boarding pass before the flight date, hiring multilingual crew members to guide and assist the pilgrims throughout the journey, providing special local meals to give pilgrims a taste of home, presenting guidance in-flight films for Hajj, and sharing informative brochures of luggage allowance.
Furthermore, ground operations cooperated with both IT and Saudia’s branch in Mecca to provide a new distinguished in-advance-receipt-of-luggage service to more than (180.000) guests from India, Indonesia and Malaysia by sending multinational teams to the pilgrims at their residential locations in order to receive and ship their luggage to the airport. Moreover, three-shift employees had been worked day and night to smoothly and precisely organize the pilgrims at the airport in order to avoid accumulation.
Saudia, actually, is paying a great attention to the organization of pilgrimage season by establishing an independent sector (Pilgrimage and Umrah Sector) which is in charge of conducting studies and providing suggestions to develop and enhance services during the Holy seasons.