First flight to bring back Hajis to land on Aug 27

PESHAWAR: The first flight to bring back the pilgrims after performing Haj would land at the Bacha Khan International Airport on August 27.

A private airline, the Airblue, would bring back the first batch of 170 pilgrims. The airline had flown the first batch of intending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on July 14.

A high-level meeting to review the arrangements for the post-Haj flights operation was held at the Bacha Khan International Airport with its manager Samar Rafique in the chair.

The officials of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), district administration, Airport Security Force (ASF), Customs, security forces, health and other concerned departments attended the meeting.

The participants discussed strategy for the post-Haj flights operation and reviewed the arrangements. Samar Rafique informed the participants that Haj flights operation has been successfully completed as the last flight to take the intending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia took off today (Wednesday).

He said the return process of the Hajis would start on August 27. The official said that around 30,000 pilgrims from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa went to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj. The meeting decided to allow the returning pilgrims to go home directly from the airport. It also decided to allow limited number of people to receive their relatives at the airport due to ongoing development work at there.

The CCA officials urged the people not to bring more than one vehicle at the airport to receive the Hajis to avoid inconvenience. As many as 18,000 pilgrims from KP are performing Haj under the government scheme and 12,000 people are doing so private schemes.