Lion Air Opens Padang-Madinah Flight

Padang, (Antara Sumbar) - Lion Air Airlines opens the Umrah route through Padang-Madinah International Airport through Minangkabau International Airport (BIM), West Sumatra with the first flight on November 15, 2017.

"The flight is a breakthrough that we are doing to improve the service to people who want to perform the umrah worship," General Service Manager of Lion Air Group, Ary Azhari told in Padang, on Wednesday.

The inaugural flight from Padang to Madinah begins on Wednesday (Nov 15), with a passenger number of 175 people, using Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.

He explained the flight is a direct flight to the destination, where the stop is only done once in Trivandrum, India, for 30 minutes for refueling.

"The direct flight will be very useful for the elderly congregation, as soon as it flies from BIM down in the Holy Land, there is no need for transit in some countries as usual, or to repeat the check-in process," he explained.

Besides Padang-Madinah, Lion Air also serves Padang-Jeddah flight route. Both routes are scheduled to depart once a week.

Ary claimed that Padang-Madinah Umrah flights have full passengers with percentage of 100 percent until February 2018.

"The plan for this month and so on the flight schedule will be added twice a week, considering the high interest of community," he said.

He said the Umrah flight was a regular type where the plane still departs on schedule without being affected by the number of passengers.

Lion Air has opened Umrah travel services in several cities such as Pekanbaru, Banjarmasin, Palembang, Solo, Aceh, Bandung, Balikpapan, Surabaya, Jakarta, and Padang.

In operation, the airline uses Airbus A330 fleet with 437 passengers capacity, and the latest aircraft is Boeing 737 Max 8 with a capacity of 175 passengers.

"We hope that every facility provided will help and facilitate pilgrims from the homeland to practice worship to the holy land, by providing safe and comfortable air transportation and providing food for pilgrims," he explained.

While the mayor of Padang, Mahyeldi Ansharullah is assessing that the opening of the route will have an impact on regional progress.

"With the route, people from other regions or neighboring provinces will come to Padang first to depart, which will have an impact on regional progress," he added. (cha)

Editor: Vicha Faradika