Jeddah : After a long wait of 49 hours, 235 Indian pilgrims bound for Kolkata on Air India Flight AI 5008 finally boarded the air craft at around 8.00 p.m. on Sunday, Saudi Gazette reported.
Passengers, who were scheduled to have departed at 7.40 p.m. on Friday, told the newspaper that they were shifted from their hotel to the Haj Terminal in Jeddah on Sunday afternoon. However, another 470 pilgrims also bound for Kolkata are stuck here as their flights — AI 5018 and AI 5020 — are delayed.
[Courtesy: IINA]
Other Air India flights bound for Mangalore and Srinagar, however, departed with little delays. Indian Consul General B.S. Mubarak told Saudi Gazette that Air India is trying to stabilize the situation. “They are bringing a bigger aircraft tomorrow (Monday) and by day after tomorrow the situation will normalize,” he said.
Air India is operating eight to nine flights everyday to various destinations in India, out of which three flights are for Kolkata, said the airlines station manager Firoz Khan. He attributed the delays to what he called delays in baggage and passenger processing. This year, Air India transported 50,790 pilgrims from 21 embarkation points. Some 49,230 Indian pilgrims were carried by Saudi Arabian Airlines. This year a total of 1,36,020 Indian pilgrims performed Haj. Some 100,020 pilgrims came through the Haj Committee of India, and the remaining 36,000 came through private tour operators.