The first flight of Nigerian pilgrims, who performed this year’s Hajj in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has left the country for Nigeria on Tuesday.
The first flight carrying 425 pilgrims from Sokoto State departed the King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, at about two o’clock Saudi Time Tuesday afternoon.
The flight is expected to land at the Sultan Abubakar International Airport, Sokoto, at about 6:00pm on July 4. According to Engineer Goni Sanda, head of aviation committee of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria , the return home journey would be strictly on the initial sequence of pilgrims’ journey to the Holy land, to be fair in discharging the duty, saying every pilgrim and official is expected to spend a minimum of 40 days to 43 days in the Holy Land before he or she would be airlifted back to Nigeria.
“The tradition of first come, first return will be observed as a principle and in line with the Saudi guidelines for fairness and equity,” he said. While appealing to pilgrims and the operators to conduct the home-bound journeys orderly, he, however, revealed that the Saudi Arabian authorities have a policy in place that do not allow air carriers to operate maximally during the first two-week return flight operations due to traffic congestion and the large number of aircrafts involved in the evacuation of pilgrims from the Holy Land to different continents and countries of the world.
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