First RI haj flights leave for Jeddah
First RI haj flights leave for Jeddah
JAKARTA (JP): Seven planes, each carrying 480 passengers, left for Jeddah from Halim Perdanakusumah airport yesterday, marking the start of the massive operation to send some 194,000 Indonesians on this year's haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
Unlike last year, there was no formal ceremony to send off the first flight from Jakarta, which took place 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled 8 a.m.
In the past, minister of religious affairs, the Saudi Arabian ambassador and the governor of Jakarta always held a ceremony aboard the first jet to leave from here.
Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto and Director General of Islamic and Haj of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Ahmad Gozali, however, were present to watch the first jet take off yesterday.
The first flights from the other four appointed airports in Medan of North Sumatra, Ujungpandang of South Sulawesi, Surabaya in East Java, and Balikpapan in East Kalimantan were marked with ceremonies led by governors.
A total of 195 flights will be made from Jakarta; 35 flights from Medan; 118 flights from Surabaya; 66 flights from Ujungpandang; and 39 flights from Balikpapan.
The number of prospective pilgrims included in trips organized by private haj operators reached 8,603. They will be flown over on 17 flights.
Although the departure of the first groups of pilgrims took place relatively smoothly, reports of glitches abounded.
According to the information center of Garuda Indonesia airline, 18 pilgrims failed to leave from Jakarta yesterday because they had no visas.
In Balikpapan, Antara reported, 261 of the 710 prospective pilgrims from the first and second flights failed to leave Sepinggan airport as schedule, all because of a lack of visas.
Officials at the local haj committee reported on Friday that they had yet to receive the visas, despite the pilgrims' passports being sent to Jakarta for visa processing in December.
The local committee decided to fill the open seats with pilgrims from later scheduled flights.
The prospective pilgrims, many of whom came from small towns in East and Central Kalimantan, demanded that the committee accommodate them at the Balikpapan haj dormitory while they were waiting for visas.
"We would be too embarrassed to go home because we already said goodbye to our families," said Arbain Risyad, one of the prospective pilgrims who failed to leave the country.
It is a tradition for the Moslem community here to send off relatives on pilgrimage with heart-rendering ceremonies, as well as with feasts. The often expensive tradition is one of the reasons why the pilgrims feel too embarrassed to return home when they fail to go as scheduled.
In Surabaya, the local evening newspaper Surabaya Post reported that hundreds of prospective pilgrims from Bojonegoro and Tuban regencies failed to leave on the first and second flights because they had no visas.
The local haj committee immediately called pilgrims from Gresik regency to fill up the 818 open seats. Even then, there were still 30 open seats left.
The Juanda airport is scheduled to send an average of 1,636 pilgrims on four flights every day.
Ismail, the head of the local religious affairs office, said that as of yesterday his office had received from Jakarta only 16,000 of the requested 31,619 visas for prospective pilgrims from Surabaya.
In Ujungpandang, 127 people could not go because they had no visas.
Director General of Islamic and Haj Affairs of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Ahmad Gozali confirmed that problems in departures occurred because of the lack of visas.
He said that as of yesterday his office received only 135,000 issued visas.
The Saudi Arabian embassy recently said that it processed about 10,000 visas per day, and promised to have completed issuing the visas before the departure of the first groups of pilgrims.
Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdul Rahman Alim was not available for comment yesterday. (01)