Ministry Of Religion Surprised Garuda Flight Transport Of Hajj Candidates Is Still Late

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) evaluates the Hajj flight services provided by Garuda Indonesia, due to the large number of delays that occur.

The departure of Indonesian pilgrims has been going on since May 12, 2024, where until May 26, 2024, 287 flying groups (cluters) have been dispatched to the holy land, with details of Garuda Indonesia departing 152 groups, while Saudia Airlines as many as 132 clusters.

"As of May 26, we see that Garuda Indonesia still often experiences delays. Of the 152 groups, there are 60 groups that are late or around 39.47 percent," said Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) spokesman Anna Hasbie as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, May 28.

Anna revealed that the worst delay was experienced by the pilgrims of the 42nd batch of Solo (SOC-42) embarkations due to a malfunction of the aircraft engine that dispatched the SOC-41 pilgrims.

He said the group was the last group of the Solo embarkation to depart in the first batch, to land at Amir Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz (AMAA) Airport in Medina.

The slowdown in SOC-42, he continued, also had an impact on changes to the SOC-43 schedule, which shifted to 17 hours from the original plan.

"As a result of the broken engine of Garuda Indonesia, SOC-42 was 7 hours 10 minutes late. This is clearly very long and makes the congregation even more exhausted," he said.

In addition, said Anna, there were 13 groups flown by Garuda Indonesia with delays in the range of one to two hours, and seven groups with delays of more than two hours.

This, he continued, is different from Saudia Airlines, which has a record delay of 11.85 percent, or 16 out of 132 late clusters.

"For Saudia Airlines, the longest delay was experienced by the first batch of Jakarta-Bekasi or JKS-01, about 47 minutes," he said.

Anna emphasized that the evaluation process for the on-time performance of Garuda Indonesia and Saudia Airlines will continue every week. Currently, the stages of departing pilgrims enter the peak season or the season peak.

"This is certainly a challenge for airlines. We ask Garuda Indonesia to prepare comprehensive mitigation so that the problem of flight delays that are still quite large can be resolved and not sustainable," said Anna.