Breaking: Over 500 Nigerian Pilgrims Stranded At Jeddah Airport, Due To Non-Availability Of Max Air Aircraft
Over 500 Nigerian Pilgrims are at the moment stranded at the Pilgrims wing of the International Airport in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia reason being that Max Air airline that supposed to convey them back home has refused to show up, since after conveying Pilgrims to Adamawa last Sunday.
Universalreporters247.com learnt that as at this moment, Nigerian pilgrims are stranded in Saudi Arabia; these pilgrims are from Bauchi, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Jigawa states.
A pilgrim who spoke to this medium on condition of anonymity said; “We are stranded here, waiting for Max Air to come and take us back home, but we have not seen any Max Air airplane, the last time we saw an Aircraft belonging to Max Air was last Sunday night when it conveyed pilgrims to Adamawa.”
“Majority of us who has no money to buy food, are begging for money to feed and you what that means here in Saudi, and due to that a lot of us are always arrested on a daily basis,” he said.
“My question is this, why, will National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON in the first place appoints an airline as Max Air as a carrier for Hajj Pilgrims. We have reports that the airline is only functioning with two planes and see it now we are just stranded because of the ineptitude of an airline organisation that does not our interest at heart,” he added.
Another pilgrim who spoke with this medium stated that A Max Air flight was supposed to take them back to Nigeria today by 8:08 Nigerian time, speaking further he said; “all pilgrims have departed Saudi, except we Nigerian pilgrims and we are the only ones still remaining in Saudi Arabia. We are at the Jeddah airport, some of us has been here since yesterday night, we even slept outside under a canopy, imagine the hot weather of Saudi Arabia where we slept, there are no food, neither is there water for us to take, all as a result of inability of Max Air to convey us home.”
This medium learnt that the Pilgrims are under the scorching Sun waiting for none existing planes, in fact according to their boarding pass they are suppose to leave at 10.08am today, but they have been at the airport since yesterday and no sign of max air or its plane, or of any of its staff to give any explanation why they are yet to take off.
As gathered by universalreporters247.com, as at the time of writing this report, Bauchi state pilgrims board just gave their pilgrims water to quench their states, but other states are on their own.
Meanwhile, from NAHCON website, the final flight schedule that supposed to take final Nigeria Pilgrims back to Nigeria is today being 22/10/2015 and that airline is Max Air.
Meanwhile, a pilgrim told universalreporters247.com that; “ The President should called NAHCON to investigate this negligence from Max Air and even sanction them and also investigate how it grants an airline go ahead for Hajj operation.
All efforts to reach to both NAHCON officials and Max Air officials proved abortive as their numbers are not reachable as at the time of filling in this report.
