JEDDAH: Hundreds of Indian pilgrims have been stranded for three days at the Haj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport here due to no available seats on return flights. The Haj Terminal opened for the post-Haj operations on Dec. 12.

Among the stranded pilgrims are those bound for Kolkata who were originally scheduled to take off on Sunday. Air India officials told Arab News yesterday that they are looking into the matter.

“The problem surfaced due to the late arrival of some of the pilgrims from Makkah,” said an airline official, who did not want to be named. He said the pilgrims who were scheduled to fly at 2:30 p.m. on the first day reached the terminal 12 hours late.

According to Indian officials overseeing the arrangements in the holy cities, some pilgrims chose to offer Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque before leaving Makkah. Their arrival at the Haj Terminal was further delayed due to traffic snarls at some points.

According to Saeed Ahmad Baba, India’s consul general in Jeddah, buses were not allowed inside Makkah on Dec. 12 to pick up the pilgrims due to huge crowds attending Friday prayers. The buses reached the pilgrims’ accommodation at 2:30 p.m., instead of 11 a.m. as per schedule, resulting in a delay in transporting them to the Haj Terminal.

On the consul general’s request, Air India officials are in touch with Saudi authorities to solve the issue.

“The late arrival of these pilgrims, which resulted in flight delays that had a snowballing effect, created chaos at the airport. So Air India has suspended all return Haj flights for three days from today to clear the backlog,” said the airline’s Jeddah-based Regional Manager Deepak Anand.

The suspension is from 12:01 a.m. Wednesday till 12:01 a.m. Saturday. “We have already instructed our officials in Makkah to hold back the pilgrims for three days from tomorrow (Wednesday) so that the backlog can be cleared,” he said.

Pilgrims who have already reached the terminal were shifted to different hotels. “Initially, some of the pilgrims were reluctant to move to hotels fearing that they would remain stranded. But after they were convinced of the situation, they agreed to leave the terminal,” he added.

According to official stipulations, the pilgrims have to arrive at the Haj Terminal eight hours before the scheduled departure.

Pilgrims who were scheduled to fly to Kolkata yesterday morning said that they have not been officially informed about the status of their flight, causing a lot of confusion. “We were simply being asked to proceed to hotels without being told when we will take off,” said Murtaza Ahmed Suhrawardy from Patna.

Suhrawardy, who wanted to take his sick wife Shafra back home and give her specialist treatment as soon as possible, said he was now worried. “It is a matter of life and death for my wife as she needs expert medical care urgently, but we are now stranded,” said Suhrawardy.

The flight delays also caused immense problems for the airline’s crew. “It takes five hours for them to arrive here from India and then due to many delayed departures, the aircraft do not find parking slots, sometimes for hours, at the Haj Terminal. By the time the incoming flights find a slot, the pilots and the crew become exhausted and they cannot fly due to safety considerations. They need 12 to 14 hours of rest before operating the next flight,” said one official.

Air India has scheduled 300 flights to take back the pilgrims totaling 63,000 who performed Haj through the official Haj Committee of India.

Inquiries with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) showed that it also faced the problem of late arrival of pilgrims from Makkah during the first three days of their outbound operation.

“As a result, we had to delay flights. And once flights are delayed it is difficult to find parking slots for incoming flights,” Manzoor ul Hassan, general manager, PIA, Saudi Arabia, said. However, he added that none of the Pakistani pilgrims are stranded at the Haj Terminal. PIA is flying back 140,000 pilgrims on 310 flights till early January.

Forty-eight Haj flights have left the terminal so far, he added.