JAKARTA. National flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia has finished its service to fly Indonesian haj pilgrims to and from Saudi Arabia during the 2014 haj season with a 90.8-percent on-time performance (OTP) rate, 10.8 percent higher than the company's target.

“Our aircraft with flight number GA2208 from Jeddah, which landed in Makassar [South Sulawesi] at 1:15 p.m. [local time] on Thursday, is the last phase of haj pilgrim groups that we are managing this year,” Garuda vice president communications Pujobroto told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

With the arrival of the last Makassar group, the carrier has provided flight services to 82,809 haj pilgrims from 10 points across the country.

The carrier transported pilgrims to Saudi Arabia from the first day of September to Sept. 28 and flew them home between Oct. 9 and Nov.6, 2014, Pujobroto said.

“For pilgrims who departed from Jakarta and Medan [North Sumatra] this season, we provided direct flight services from Madinah from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6,” he said.

Garuda operated 11 wide-body aircraft to serve haj pilgrims this year — six Airbus A330s, four Boeing B747s, and one Boeing B777.

The airline also recruited 484 cabin crew, of whom 70 percent were originally from the 10 embarkation points, in order to curb language barriers since many of the pilgrims only spoke local languages.

“This is part of our commitment to improving our services to passengers,” Pujobroto added.

During the 2013 haj season, Garuda flew 89,946 pilgrims on a total of 234 flights. (Nurfika Osman)

Editor: Hendra Gunawan