The report
affirmed that the airline’s goals for the last Haj were achieved. The
Haj operations plan was mainly focused on increasing transportation of
pilgrims with special stress on time schedules in addition to expanding
services to Madinah.The airline also achieved better coordination
with the Ministry of Haj, the General Authority for Civil Aviation and
other government departments in its operations, the Saudi Press Agency
reported on Friday.“Unforeseen situations were also dealt with
during the initial stage of pilgrims’ departure when heavy rains in the
Holy Sites disrupted pilgrim movement from Makkah to Jeddah, something
that in turn delayed flights, but the timing of scheduled flights soon
returned to normal,” the report said.The airlines operated 2,400 Haj
services carrying more than 1,040,000 pilgrims to and from the Kingdom
to 102 airports across the world in 2010.The report added that
538,000 pilgrims from 24 Asian cities, 187,000 pilgrims from 28 Middle
Eastern and Gulf cities, 132,000 pilgrims from 20 African cities and
127,000 pilgrims from 30 European and American cities flew with the
airline during the Haj. It also ferried 55,000 domestic pilgrims from
various Saudi cities. The airlines carried 332,000 pilgrims directly
from 42 international cities to Madinah. In more than 235 services
compared to 2009, the number of pilgrims carried on Saudia increased by
100,000 pilgrims in 2010, the report said.The report also mentioned
the services offered to passengers, such as issuing sufficient boarding
passes in advance for arrival and departure. It also organized campaigns
on security during Haj and showed films about Haj rites. The airline
was also careful to appoint multilingual stewards to serve pilgrims.The
director general also directed preparations to evaluate the experience
in the 2010 operations in order to prepare for the next season.
