Hajj flight begins

This year’s Hajj flight carrying 419 Bangladeshi pilgrims started for Saudi Arabia this morning.

This year's Hajj flight began today as an aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for Saudi Arabia with 419 Bangladeshi pilgrims

The hajj flight left the airport at 7:15am, our staff correspondent from the spot.

State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mahbub Ali and State Minister for Religious Affairs Alhaj Advocate Sheikh Md Abdullah, among others, were present during the inauguration of the hajj programme-2019 at Ashkona Hajj Camp in Dhaka around 3:40am today.

Some 1,27,198 pilgrims from Bangladesh are set to perform hajj this year. Biman will carry 63,599 passengers, which is about half of the number of total hajj pilgrims.

The remaining pilgrims will be flown by Saudi Airlines, the national carrier of Saudi Arabia which will start its hajj flight on July 6.

Biman is going to operate 189 pre-hajj flights, 157 dedicated and 32 scheduled flights from today to August 5, by its own four ‘Boeing 777-300ER’.

The airlines will operate 11 flights to Madina from Dhaka for the first time this year. Apart from Dhaka, 19 hajj flights will be operated from Chattogram while three from Sylhet.

Biman will operate 176 post-hajj flights, 147 dedicated and 29 scheduled flights from August 17 to September 15.