By  Kenneth Ehigiator

One of the airlines involved in this year’s Hajj airlift, Medview Airlines, has said the homeward journey of Nigerian pilgrims from Saudi Arabia would be on first-go-first-come basis.

Managing Director of the airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole, disclosed this as the last batch of 335 Muslim pilgrims from Lagos, Osun and Oyo States departed the country for the holy land.

According to him, the first-go-first-come basis was designed by the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) was to ensure orderly airlift of the pilgrims back home, as well as ensure that Nigeria beat the deadline to bring home all the pilgrims.

The strategy, he said, would stave off a situation where pilgrims were stranded in the holy land for days and, sometimes, weeks after Hajj.
Bankole, who expressed satisfaction at the pace of the airlift of pilgrims to the holy land at Hajj Camp of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, said the use of one call sign by all airlines involved in the airlift had made it easy to identify pilgrims from Nigeria and view them as united.

“We have been experiencing a lot of tremendous change in the airlift of pilgrimages and glory goes to almighty Allah but l think we should do more than this. The best thing we have achieved in the last two years is to work under one profile, irrespective of all the carrier appointed by the federal government.”

“So we are going to Saudi Arabia with one name. We designed that approach that we say look, if I work as my own carrier and you work as your own, there will be this kind of enmity in the eyes of the world. So we decided to form a synergy. We say, let forget our differences because we are doing pilgrimage.

“Here I am Medview but in Saudi Arabia I am N9, so when I carry this airline on the sky, my captain call N9 all the way down instead of calling Michael which is my designated call sign. That gives Saudi Arabia some comfort because it will be one gateway one problem to be solved instead of five from different carrier so that is one of the main benefits of the agreement,” he said.

On bringing back the pilgrims as seamlessly as they were airlifted, Bankole assured that the process of going and returning have been completed since February because in 2009 the carriers gave themselves a target to improve on the process.

“I will just assure you that before we started this operation we concluded this plan as far back as February this year because when we were ending 2009 we gave ourselves a target on areas that we need to improve upon. We introduce a baggage contingency package allowance for the pilgrims to see their baggage to pick when they land and which is very effective.”

“The major thing we’ve done this year is to bring a system that makes sure all pilgrims will carry identified hand luggage. The main causes of delay are two things, the hand luggage which they pack up with your heavier luggage.

You know in the past they usually carry forward, backward and on their head, but these days NAHCON insisted that you carry only one hand luggage.

“So this year we thought we should bring a bigger aircraft to Lagos looking at the volume of pilgrims including their stay and timing so that will be the best option so as to bring them back earlier so all you have seen now if not for states that decided to stay two days behind we would have ended this two days early,” he stated.

He also commended NAHCON for living up to their responsibility and realizing that they owe it as a duty to every Nigerian Muslim to ensure that the pilgrimage is a truly spiritual one.