On getting ready for the coming Omrah season, which begins in two weeks, the national carrier EgyptAir announced it had completed preparations to transfer more than half a million pilgrims to the holy lands in Saudi Arabia. Chairman and CEO Hossam Kamal explained that the airline had scheduled 1927 flights to Jeddah and Al-Madinah to transfer 540,370 pilgrims to perform Omrah, starting from the Profit's birthday or Muwlid Omrah in late January till the end of Ramadan Omrah in July and August. Kamal explained the carrier had studied all requests by travel operators as well as religious tourism companies. "We mainly target the comfort of our passengers and particularly those who fly for such a spiritual ritual," he stated. "More facilitations will be offered to pilgrims during the coming Omrah seasons. We have worked to simplify procedures and introduce all possible help to guarantee a quick implementation of immigration procedures in arrival and departure." The airline, according to Kamal, had expanded capacity of offered seats by 50 per cent comparing to last year. He justified the move as responding to the current stability which had reflected positively on traffic movement and load factor through the Egyptian airports. The 2011 Omrah seasons attracted 360,683 pilgrims over the holy months of Ragab, Shaban, Ramadan in addition to the Muwlid Omrah. EgyptAir at present operates four daily flights to Jeddah, three from Cairo and one from Alexandria. It also operates seven weekly flights to Al-Madinah, in addition to three flights weekly from Alexandria.
