Nigeria’s rising domestic carrier, Medview Airline has continued to successfully airlift pilgrims to the Holy Land, thus confirming the operator as the most organised airline in Hajj operations.
On Thursday the airline flagged off the flight of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia with 460 passengers from Kwara for the 2017.
The aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 which took off at 12:21 from the Ilorin International Airport was the first service while another aircraft, a Boeing 767 aircraft was already primed to airlift another batch of 220 passengers later on Thursday.
Kwara State as a zone for the Hajj operation comprised pilgrims from Ondo and Ekiti who are expected to be airlifted on August 9, 2017.
Speaking just before commencement of the airlift, Managing Director of Medview, Alhaji Muneer Bankole assured officials of the state that the airline would ensure a smooth hajj as well as return as is its character.
He however said that the airline would airlift its Kwara passengers in the next three or four days but would return on the 9th to airlift the Kwara state and Ondo state pilgrims
Bankole dismissed the fears about whether all the pilgrims would return and whether there would be hiccups in the return trip and explained that their return flights had already been programmed, adding that Medview is the only airline that takes pilgrims luggage to their rooms, thus eliminating the hassles faced by them when they are accompanied by their luggage.
On the possibility of some pilgrims missing while in Holy Land, the Medview Boss remarked that such incidents have drastically reduced and observed that the need for the pilgrims to be in uniform was important because it helps to identify them and to foreclose the chance of such disappearance the pilgrims should be made to always travel in groups.
This is my 37 years of performing Hajj. The expreince covers my day in Nigeria Airways. We have set the pace in the airlift pilgrims in Nigeria and we have been doing this as Medview Airline for 11 years. Each pilgrim knows the day he will b back and we take the passengers baggage to their doorsteps. My appeal is that the pilgrims should abide by the rules.
He called on officials of the state to partner and support the airline so that its pilgrims would continue to enjoy the very safest of flights in the most secure of environments.
Industry observers gave kudos to the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCOM) Ilorin zone for the efficient organisation of the Hajj process, which made it easy to airlift the passengers as scheduled.
Last Tuesday, Medview kicked off the airlifting of its 2017 Hajj operations in Kaduna state with the airlifting of about 1, 140 pilgrims from the Kaduna International Airport.
The airline started with the first batch of 460 pilgrims on board its Boeing 747-400 aircraft flight VL3110 which took off the airline is scheduled to airlift a batch of 220 on its Boeing 767-200ER flight VL3108.
