King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and Prince Muhammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah are once again abuzz with activity with pilgrims beginning to leave the Kingdom after performing Haj.

Pilgrims’ departure will last a month, and after Nov. 20, when all pilgrims would have left the country, Haj operations will come to an end. Besides Jeddah and Madinah airports, there are 16 other exit points including sea and land routes along the borders of the Kingdom for smooth departure of pilgrims.

All passengers are reaching the airports eight hours ahead of their departure schedule and about 10,000 buses are being used to transport pilgrims to the airport from Makkah. Besides having spare buses as standby along the Jeddah-Makkah route, the general syndicate of transport has also deployed mobile mechanical teams to carry out maintenance in case of breakdown of buses.

All departing pilgrims are being provided with 10 liters of Zam Zam water at the airport. This is the first time that all departing pilgrims get water at the airport. The move is aimed at reducing luggage hassles for pilgrims at the airport.

GCC pilgrims are the first to leave the Kingdom, followed by pilgrims from other countries. In all, 808,000 foreign pilgrims will be exiting from King Abdulaziz International Airport through 50,000 flights to various destinations across the globe.

Mohammed Fakheer, a pilgrim from Delhi, said spending long hours at Jeddah Airport was indeed difficult.

Pilgrims have also begun leaving from Madinah’s airport. In all, about 300,000 pilgrims are scheduled to leave the country from Madinah through 1,240 flights to various parts of the world.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation has introduced penalties for late departures besides fixing responsibility on airlines to take back all passengers flown to the Kingdom for Haj. This year, 1,379,531 pilgrims — 752,424 males and 627,107 females — from foreign countries, mostly Asians, preformed Haj. Last year, 1,752,932 pilgrims from abroad preformed Haj.

Meanwhile, Director of Passport Services for Pilgrims, Maj. Gen. Ayad Al-Harbi has advised all pilgrims to leave the Kingdom according to their schedules and also urged residents not to provide any shelter to pilgrims overstaying their visas.