Haj flights begin to arrive on time: Garuda Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Garuda Indonesia's planes carrying haj pilgrims home from Saudi Arabia have seen fewer and shorter delays starting this weekend, an airline official said.

The fewer delays were due to additional gates allocated to Indonesian pilgrims at the King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, Bahrein Effendi, an official overseeing the flights, said Saturday.

When the massive operation to fly home Indonesian pilgrims began on April 23, the delays ran up to 18 hours. Officials blamed this on the huge congestion at Jeddah airport.

Garuda has been requesting for extra gates for its flights on top of the two that had been given by the Saudi authorities. Indonesia's haj contingent of 200,000 is the world's largest.

On Saturday, one Garuda flight arrived one hour ahead of schedule at the Halim Perdanakusumah airport in Jakarta, and another five minutes before, but one flight touched down half hour behind schedule.

However the government's operation to bring home the pilgrims continued to be beset by complaints of lost luggage, Bidowi Zubeir, who heads the committee overseeing haj returns said on Saturday.

In the majority of cases, suitcases were switched, traveling on different planes. Many flights arriving at Halim airport brought luggage belonging to different groups of pilgrims, some even pilgrims bound for the other debarkation points in Ujung Pandang, Balikpapan, Surabaya and Surakarta (Solo).

By Saturday, a total of 4,113 luggage had been reported lost. Of these, 2,818 had been claimed by their owners, Nur Sultoni, an official in charge of keeping and returning unclaimed luggage.

The unclaimed luggage was kept at Building III of the Pondok Gede haj dormitory. They consisted of large suitcases and small hand bags and plastic containers of zam-zam, water collected from an eternal well nearby Ka'bah in Mecca.

Sultoni said a truck had been dispatched to Cirebon to bring the luggage for pilgrims from the West Java town. Another truck was being prepared to transport luggage to Cianjur on Saturday.

Bidowi said the committee would try to send luggage that are clearly labeled to their owners.

Those that are not identified would be kept at Pondok Gede until May 19, the last day of the haj operation, and afterwards they would be sent to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The ministry then would donate them to orphanages, he added.

By Saturday, a total of 664 Indonesian pilgrims have died in Saudi Arabia, mostly of heart failure and lung disease, according to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Yesterday 201 pilgrim groups arrived with 84,412 pilgrims. Thirteen more died, according to the Ministry, totaling the figure to 677. Most or 282 people were between 60 to 69, and 227 were over 69.

Last year 570 of nearly 200,000 Indonesian pilgrims died. (11)