The PIA management will visit Saudi Arabia in February to meet Saudi authorities and convince them to take a number of measures, which, it believes, would ease passenger flow at Haj terminals in the next Haj season.
According to sources in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, in the last week of August 2011, a joint delegation of the ministry and PIA had visited Saudi Arabia and held a meeting with the director of Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the main Saudi foreign intelligence service, at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.
The delegation was briefed that the major source of congestion and inconvenience to passengers was the limited number of security checkpoints, which was 14 compared to around 100 immigration counters.
This disparity disturbed the passenger flow, as immigration took about a minute to clear approximately 10 passengers, while the limited number of counters meant that GID took about 10 minutes to clear a single passenger.
This situation ultimately disturbed the entire passenger flow and overcrowded the Haj terminals.
Arrangements of security counters with a new security setup were proposed and the GID director asked the delegation to submit it in writing.
Accordingly, a proposal had been sent through the Religious Affairs Ministry.
However, it could not be materialised last year owing to Saudi Arabia’s hesitation in allocating additional funds and resources.
After long deliberation, PIA was successful in getting a dedicated bay out the 14 available bays.
The sources said with regard to the acquisition of separate terminal for PIA flights, PIA had requested Saudi authorities to allocate the West Terminal, which is opposite to the existing Haj terminal but the request was not acceded to because the infrastructure of the West Terminal was not sufficient to cater to pilgrims, as there were no restaurants, the seating capacity was insufficient and there were no check-in arrangements.
The Saudi authorities did not agree because they did not want to discriminate between PIA and pilgrims boarding other airlines.
However, the PIA management would again be meeting the Saudi authorities in February in this regard.
PIA to convince Saudis on easing passenger flow at Haj terminals
