KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has given a big facility of advance issuance of boarding passes to the Hajj pilgrims following the directives of the Aviation Minister.
The Hajj pilgrims of the government scheme will be issued boarding passes by the PIA under the city check-in system prior to their arrival at the airport.
Through the facility, the pilgrims will be freed from arriving at the airport at least 12 hours prior to their departure back home and standing in long queues for getting their boarding passes. The PIA will issue boarding passes to the Hajj pilgrims in their respective cities.
The pilgrims will only have to go through the immigration process at the airport. The facility was given to facilitate the pilgrims and to avoid long queues at the airports. The project was initiated following the personal efforts of the aviation minister to facilitate the Hajj pilgrims.
Meanwhile, PIA spokesperson announced that the post-Hajj flight operation will begin on Thursday (tomorrow) and the first flight, PK-732 will take off from Jeddah to Karachi at 1:00 morning to bring back Hujjaj. Second flight, PK-739 will depart from Jeddah airport to Lahore On July 14 (tomorrow) at 2:00 morning.
Overall 14 post-Hajj flights will be operated on Thursday from Jeddah to Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Islamabad and Peshawar.
According to the spokesperson, PIA post-Hajj flight operations will be comprised of 154 flights in order to bring back 28,080 Hujjaj from the Holy Land. The national flag carrier will bring back 17,200 Hujjaj of the government scheme and 10,880 pilgrims of the private scheme.
The post-Hajj flight operation will be continued from July 14 to August 13. –Agencies
