JEDDAH, 16 October 2007 — EgyptAir transported 268 passengers, who were booked to fly home on the recently formed carrier Alexandria Airline, from King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah on Sunday night.
A source at Alexandria, who didn’t want to speak on the record, attributed their inability to fly home all of the 16,000 pilgrims it brought to the Kingdom on its two planes devoted to this route to being new to this business. At least 8,000 Egyptian pilgrims are stranded in Jeddah waiting for flights or boats home; about 1,500 of them are trying to get home by plane.
The Alexandria Airline refused to operate more flights because of some disagreement over fares. The Saudi civil aviation authorities had permitted the carrier to transport pilgrims as a means to end the usual difficulties experienced by the returning pilgrims and vacation travelers, according to a reliable source.
“The situation of Egyptian pilgrims who are at the Pilgrims’ City in Jeddah awaiting their return ships are progressing at a slow pace,” said Ahmad Al-Dakar, director of the Umrah section at the Al-Fouzan Travels in Jeddah said, referring to the ferry-bound pilgrims waiting for space on vessels departing from the Jeddah Islamic Port. He observed that the black market in the ship ticket has almost disappeared and the ticket charges have come down to near normal.
He also stressed the need for the shipping companies to keeping announced schedules while passengers also should wait for their scheduled turn without hurrying to get a berth beforehand and upsetting the schedules.
The backlog at the port was exacerbated by the fact that some ships were taken out of circulation temporarily for routine inspections that had been scheduled for the peak Ramadan-Umrah season.
