KARACHI, Dec 5: The Pakistan International Airlines’ first pre-Haj flight from Karachi left on Monday with 456 intending pilgrims on board. It signals the national flag carrier’s start of a massive Haj operation to Saudi Arabia from Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.

The Chief Minister, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Deputy Director General, Civil Aviation Authority Air Vice-Marshal M Safdar Khan, Senior Vice-President (Marketing) PIA Kamran Hassan, Director Haj Manzoor Hussain, senior officials of the PIA, the CAA, the ASF, and Immigration and Customs saw off the intending pilgrims at the Karachi airport.

In all, 346 PIA flights will airlift 124,644 intending pilgrims. The flights will be completed on Jan 4, 2006.

For the first time, 54 Haj flights will go directly to Madinah; nine from Karachi, 23 from Lahore and 22 from Islamabad.

The pre-Haj operations includes 91 flights carrying 38,572 pilgrims from Karachi, 73 from Lahore airlifting 32,690, 61 from Islamabad transporting 27,609, 75 flights from Peshawar carrying 15,975 and 46 from Quetta with 9,798 intending pilgrims.

The PIA’s post-Haj operations from Jeddah will commence on Jan 14, 2006.

For the convenience of pilgrims, the PIA has made special arrangements providing complimentary Haj books (Anwar-i-Harmain and A’amal-i-Haj), ihrams to male hajis and gowns to female hajis before their departure to the haji camps.

—PPI