2025 Hajj: NAHCON Begins Airlift May 5, Partners Flynas

Flynas, a Saudi-designated Nigerian Hajj air carrier, has signed a pilgrims airlift agreement with the Nigerian government for 2025 operations.

This comes after the West African country announced it would begin airlifting its pilgrims to Saudi Arabia on May 5, 2025.

The 2025 Hajj pilgrims airlift agreement was signed by the chief commercial officer of Flynas, Mr Khaled Alhejairi, and the chairman and CEO of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman, on Monday at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Flynas’s Director for Business Development, Mr Yasser Ajlan, Manager of Business Development, Mr Hani Isma’il, and Managing Director, First Planet Travels and General Sales Agent (GSA) of Flynas in Nigeria, Alhaji Umar Kaila.

Mr Alhejairi has promised to sustain the airline’s sterling legacy of providing superlative services to Nigerian pilgrims.

“We want to assure NAHCON that Flynas will continue to provide comfortable and enduring travelling experiences to our esteemed customers in Nigeria during the Hajj operation,” Mr Alhejairi said.

He said since the grand entry of Flynas into the Nigerian Hajj ecosystem in 2014, “Our brand has continued to fulfil all its obligations to our esteemed pilgrims without let or hindrance. We are happy that our experiences in Nigeria in the last 10 years have been excellent service delivery to our dear pilgrims.

We would continue to improve on our services for the benefit of our great pilgrims.”

Earlier in January, the Hajj Commission approved Flynas and three others—Air Peace, Max Air, and Umza Aviation Services Limited—for the 2025 Hajj operation.

Flynas is the biggest and most experienced airline among the selected ones. For the past 10 consecutive years, it has successfully airlifted Nigerian pilgrims to the holy land without incident.

With a projected state quota of 71,274 pilgrims, the Nigerian Hajj Commission has preliminarily allocated 22,894 pilgrims to Flynas, 9,145 to Air Peace, 23,342 to Max Air, and 15,893 to Umza Air.

With over 100 permanent and local ad-hoc workforce, Flynas has been in Nigeria as part of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.

The airline’s entry into the Nigerian Hajj sector has tremendously helped the airline build the capacity of its workforce and stabilise the airlift operations of Nigerian pilgrims to and from Saudi Arabia.