The first flight of Nigerian pilgrims, who performed this year’s Hajj in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has left the country for Nigeria on Tuesday.
The first flight carrying 425 pilgrims from Sokoto State departed the King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, at about two o’clock Saudi Time Tuesday afternoon.
The flight is expected to land at the Sultan Abubakar International Airport, Sokoto, at about 6:00pm on July 4.
According to Engineer Goni Sanda, head of aviation committee of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), the return home journey would be strictly on the initial sequence of pilgrims’ journey to the Holy land, to be fair in discharging the duty, saying every pilgrim and official is expected to spend a minimum of 40 days to 43 days in the Holy Land before he or she would be airlifted back to Nigeria.
“The tradition of first come, first return will be observed as a principle and in line with the Saudi guidelines for fairness and equity,” he said.
While appealing to pilgrims and the operators to conduct the home-bound journeys orderly, he, however, revealed that the Saudi Arabian authorities have a policy in place that do not allow air carriers to operate maximally during the first two-week return flight operations due to traffic congestion and the large number of aircrafts involved in the evacuation of pilgrims from the Holy Land to different continents and countries of the world.
Meanwhile, the leadership of NAHCON has resolved to ensure that pilgrims abide fully by its luggage policy during their return journey to Nigeria.
The commissioner of operations of the commission, Alhaji Abdullahi Magaji Hardawa, stated this at the post-Arafah meeting, stressing that the experience of last year in which many pilgrims and officials breached the rule would not be tolerated this time.
He said the commission had evolved a three window approach to luggage handling, the hand luggage of eight kilograms, the 32 kilograms luggage and the excess luggage, adding that all were efforts to ease pilgrims movement and easy luggage handling at the airports.
He decried the attitude of some pilgrims particularly the females, who go to the airport with multiple bags all in the name of hand luggage, which he said this time would not be accepted.
He, therefore, called on state officials to inform their pilgrims about the position to avoid inconveniences and unnecessary delays at the airport, adding airline operators have bitterly complained about this untoward behaviour of some pilgrims.
