The international airway carrier said in a statement that an addition of 45 flights would fly to Jeddah, the gateway to the holy city of Mecca, with an extra of 12 flights to Medina during Hajj from August 17 until September 11.
The extra flights will be operated to serve the two million pilgrims who will travel to Mecca during Hajj this year, said the statement.
This year, Emirates is expecting Hajj pilgrims coming from Yangon, Manchester, Mauritius, Jakarta, Karachi, Lagos and Nairobi, said the airlines. In May last year, Emirates added direct flights to and from Yinchuan in China’s mostly Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Travelling to Mecca and praying at the Grand Mosque is one of the five duties in the religion of Islam which any Muslim should perform during his life as long as his health and financial situation allows him or her to do so.
After Qatar Airways was banned to fly from Doha to Saudi Arabia on June 5 this year due to an ongoing diplomatic rift among the Gulf nations, Emirates Airlines became the biggest carrier in the Gulf area to carry Muslims across the world to Jeddah via Dubai.