MAS offers direct flights for haj from Sultan Mahmud Airport

KUALA TERENGGANU: The maiden landing of a Boeing 747-400 created history for Terengganu as the Malaysian Airlines (MAS) aircraft was the first jumbo jet to use the newly upgraded runway.

With the safe landing of the aircraft piloted by Terengganu-born Captain Datuk Mohd Nawawi Awang at 3.45pm on Saturday, the Sultan Mahmud Airport may be on its way to having its status elevated to an international airport in the east coast region.

Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said was at the airport to witness the occasion.

He said that MAS would be making nine direct flights for haj ferrying 3,000 pilgrims from the airport to Mecca via Jeddah between November 13 and the end of December.

The flight ferrying 224 passengers, including orphans, flew at a low altitude at the city’s airspace for about 15 minutes to allow those onboard to have a view of interesting landmarks like the Islamic Civilisation Park, from above.

“Flights to Jeddah will be increased to 20 next year, ferrying some 8,000 pilgrims,” he said.

Ahmad said the state government was also willing to absorb the cost incurred by MAS for embarking on the direct flights from here.

He said additional cost of operating the flights included, among others, fuel, ground service equipment, mobilisation and logistic.

“The state government is willing to bear the cost of about RM4.7mil for the direct flights and the management of ten Jumbo jets during the World Endurance Championship 2008,” he said.

Earlier, Ahmad witnessed the signing ceremony between MAS and the state government on the handling of the haj direct flights for this year.

MAS was represented by its Deputy General Manager of Haj operations and chartered flights Kapten Nik Ahmad Huzlan Nik Hussein and Senior General Manager for external affair Datuk Kapten Mohd Nawawi Awang while State Secretary Datuk Mokhtar Nong and his deputy Datuk Adzlan Mohd Dagang, signed on behalf of the state government.