Ten foreign airlines have delayed 49 flights of Umrah performers due to technical and operational malfunctions, according to Khalid Bin Abdullah Al-Khaibari, the spokesman of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). “Some 86 scheduled foreign airlines flights of Umrah performers took off successfully Wednesday while 37 were delayed,” he said. Some of the airlines whose flights got delayed were Iraqi Airlines, EgyptAir, Nigerian Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Algerian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Moroccan Airlines, Tunisian Airlines, Cham Wings Airlines and Egyptian Nile, said Al-Khaibari. He said that 2,711,689 Umrah performers on board 15,660 flights have left for their destinations. A number of Egyptian Umrah performers protested at the Haj lounges over the delay of their flights for over three days, Al-Khaibari added. “Thousands of Egyptian Umrah performers were stuck at the airport. Some of the angry passengers caused damage to public facilities inside the lounges and some attacked the employees who were trying to calm them down,” he said. A committee with members from the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Haj and the GACA has been formed to investigate the reasons which led to the delay in the departure of Egyptian passengers, Al-Khaibari said. A visit to the foreign airlines terminal Thursday presented a picture of total chaos and confusion. Umrah passengers with trolleys loaded with luggage were found to be rushing from counter to counter to check about their flight status. “Ignore the TV screens,” said an employee of a foreign airlines as a passenger told him that his flight status was not being shown on the screen. “They just did not issue the boarding passes to us and closed the counter,” said another perturbed passenger. He claimed that the airlines had confirmed seats more that its capacity. Some passengers who failed to board their flights were at least fortunate enough to be transported in airlines buses to hotels, but many were left unattended in the lounges. __
