Alasana Jammeh, permanent secretary at the Department of State for Local Government, Lands & Religious Affairs, has disclosed that 6 aircrafts have already been identified to transport this year’s pilgrims to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The aircrafts are being hired from Intercontinental Airline by the Hajj Commision, PS Jammeh made this remark in an exclusive interview with the Daily Observer at his office at the Quadrangle in Banjul. He said that it was not easy to acquire the aircrafts.

“Actually, getting an aircraft is not an easy task. The process of elimination based on the various offers we had had to be done very discretely,” he said, assuring this reporter that the people tasked to spearhead this year’s Hajj operation are well experienced and have been in the sector for quite a long time now.

Jammeh asserted that they are comfortable with the airline company as it has met all the criteria.
According to Jammeh, all these could not have been possible without the intervention of President Yahya Jammeh and his government, who he said ensured that D86, 000 is being charged per individual.

“We owe him a big thank you,” he posited. And he went on: “As we stand now, the Saudi authorities have issued a Foreign Operator Certificate (FOC) to us, which indicates that the airline company we have chosen has met all the requirements, giving them the right to operate in Saudi territory.”

On the number of pilgrims, PS Jammeh had this to say : “Every country is allocated with a quota, and for The Gambia, we have been allocated about 3000 pilgrims. But taking into consideration the demography of the country and, as you may already know, the situation of  world economy, it is obvious that number allocation will be affected.

In Banjul, we are looking at 1336, but as at now, we don’t have that exact number of people. We are still below that and we are working very hard towards it.

Capacity

PS Jammeh further revealed that each of the flight can accommodate up to 221 passengers. He said that the flights are all comfortable. He expressed optimism that the pilgrims will be transported on time.

Constraints

He noted that the only persisting problem they have is in the manner in which Gambians acquire their tickets. “People are used to sitting up to the last minute before coming up to buy their tickets. This is not in line with accepted standards,” he said. He argued that it would be best to acquire the tickets one or two months before departure.

He warned Gambians to refrain from the last minute rush syndrome.