By Tabora Bojang
Chaotic flight schedules, threats of hotel evictions, poor and late meals have topped the list of complains coming from the remaining hundreds of Gambian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, directed at the national carrier Gambia International Airlines GIA.
Pilgrims also accused GIA of discrimination by favouring people known to them to catch the early return flights instead of maintaining everyone to return on their designated return dates
On one occasion, on Friday, pilgrims claimed they were denied entry back to their hotel after checking out supposedly to catch their flight home only to be told at Jeddah Airport that the plane was actually stranded in Banjul.
Confronted with these complains, GIA managing director Nuno Sanneh, himself currently in Mecca, admitted there was a slight delay in the return schedules.
“Yes, there is a delay in the return schedules. We have 15 licensed travel agencies including the GIA as the national carrier, transporting pilgrims on six flights this year. But to be frank, when the flights were coming back we gave priority to pilgrims booked by the private agencies to come first while the GIA pilgrims come on the last two flights. That was the arrangement we used too when going to Saudi Arabia,” he said.
He however said some private agencies who have remaining seats on their flights, allowed GIA to slot some of its pilgrims to fill those seats and through this method, about 100 GIA pilgrims managed to come earlier than their scheduled dates. For example, there was a flight going to Guinea-Bissau which was not part of the Gambian quota but they accorded us [GIA] space to put 96 pilgrims on that flight. On the June 9 flight to Banjul, we were able to put 40 GIA pilgrims, 64 on the June 11 flight, and 22 pilgrims on this Monday, today’s flight.
“But we have informed all our pilgrims that if this opportunity comes, we are going to give priority to people who are sick, too old , physically challenged or those with urgent issues at home, particularly those from the diaspora who may miss their flights from Banjul to their bases abroad,” MD Sanneh said.
Jeddah airport delay
Responding to allegations that pilgrims were returned to their hotel after discovering there was no flight for them at Jeddah Airport on Thursday and were denied reentry back to their hotel until they pay more money, Sanneh explained:
“The usual approach is that pilgrims have to be at the airport eight hours before the flight. So they were at the airport and when we got word that the flight is delayed in Banjul, we took all he pilgrims from the airport to another hotel with good accommodation and they were all comfortable. So the allegation that we abandoned the pilgrims and they are not fed is not true and it is unfair.”
Asked to explain what caused the delay in Banjul, Sanneh said the refueling company in Banjul demanded to be paid in dollars and not bank transfer and the airline had to make arrangements in Gambia to get dollars to pay for refueling. “This took time and caused the delay,” Sanneh said.
Remaining pilgrims
According to MD Sanneh there are currently about 800 and today Monday 304 are expected to come home while two more flights are due on the 17 and 19 June to complete this year’s programme.
