Alhaji Umar Kaila is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of First Planet Travels Limited, a General Sales Agent (GSA) of Flynas, a Saudi-designated Nigerian hajj air carrier. In this interview, Alhaji Kaila explains the airline’s preparedness ahead of the 2024 hajj operation, and the airline’s participation in the airlift of Nigerian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for hajj pilgrimage since 2014, among others.
Recently, Flynas signed a pilgrim airlift agreement with the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) for the 2024 Hajj operation. With a few weeks to the beginning of the airlift, what is your level of preparation?
As we have done in the last 10 years, Flynas is fully ready to airlift Nigerian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for the 2024 pilgrimage. As you are aware, Flynas has been in Nigeria since 2014 as part of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. A fortnight ago, we officially signed a pilgrims airlift agreement with the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) for the 2024 hajj operation. Our Director for Business Development Mr Yasser Ajlan and Manager of Business Development Mr Hani Isma’il, flew from Saudi Arabia for that purpose. Flynas would airlift pilgrims from Borno, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Yobe and Zamfara states to Saudi Arabia this year.
There has been a change of leadership at NAHCON after last year’s hajj operations. How would that affect the operation?
That is true. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed a new leadership for the Nigerian Hajj and Umrah apex regulator, NAHCON. Thankfully, the president has appointed square pegs in square holes. Barrister Jalal Ahmad Arabi’s appointment came at a vintage time and I am sure his decades-long experience as a professional lawyer, cerebral bureaucrat and federal permanent secretary will be go a long way in overhauling Nigeria’s hajj commission to make it rank among the best globally. We are confident that Alhaji Jalal Arabi’s stewardship will further deepen the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia towards providing excellent services to Nigerian pilgrims.
Let us talk about your fleet capacity, how many aircraft do you use at the moment?
As part of the regulation by NAHCON, to be commissioned as a carrier to operate hajj, you require a minimum of two aircraft with a capacity of 300; one for operation and the other as a backup. Let me not brag too much, we deployed seven aircraft for the 2023 hajj operation. We submitted all these aircraft to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for their rebirthing and technical examinations and they all passed the technical examinations. All these aircraft have a minimum capacity of 400 passengers. So the deployment was seven aircraft to the Nigerian operations in phases one and two. We deployed and used all of them. We’ll deploy six aircraft for 2024 operation. So the capacity we have is more than enough to carry more than the 30,000 if given the chance to do that. With over 100 trained and competent local ad-hoc staff, there is no gain saying that Flynas’ entry into the Nigerian hajj ecosystem has tremendously helped in building the capacity of its workforce and stabilizing the airlift operations of pilgrims to and from Saudi Arabia.
The welfare of the pilgrims on transit is of paramount importance, there are times when pilgrims go to the airports and found no aircraft to airlift them. How do you handle this?
This is a very good question. We try as much as possible to try to stick to aviation regulations. The aviation regulation states that if a pilgrim is at the airport for more than eight hours, the onus is on the airline to take care of him. We have been doing that even in the first phase of the operations.
How is Flynas dealing with luggage and Zamzam water delivery?
For Zamzam water, it has been a practice with Flynas and other airlines to get the numbers required for each pilgrim. We transported Zamzam water from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria in the first leg of the operation. In the first leg of the airlift, the aircraft leaves Saudi Arabia for Nigeria to bring the pilgrims. We take advantage of that to take the necessary Zamzam required to each airport. In 2023, I think we delivered about 35,000 to 40,000 bottles of Zamzam water to Nigeria through the various airports we operated from.
For the luggage, as a practice, we did the weighing in Makkah at the pilgrims’ hotels. We try to get the official weight which is about 32 kilograms. We try to restrict that for safety reasons, though some pilgrims may complain that Flynas is very strict with that. Yes! We have to be very strict. Aircraft is not something you play around with. You have to do the load analysis, you have 430 pilgrims on an aircraft, and you have analysed that everybody should have 32kg weight of his bag plus the hand luggage. So, we try as much as possible to ensure pilgrims do not exceed 32kg. We ensure that each pilgrim who leaves Saudi Arabia arrives at their destination with their luggage that very day.
