DUBAI — Saudi Arabia has officially launched the Makkah Road Initiative by commissioning the first two flights of pilgrims from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The initiative began with ending the entry visas into Saudi Arabia from a pilgrim’s own country, at the airport where the originating flight takes off from, in collaboration with various related Saudi government agencies to facilitate pilgrimage arrangements and requirements.

This comes as the Saudi Ministry of Health announced that they have begum checking of pilgrims’ health requirements electronically without the need to see the papers of vaccines at the airport in Kuala Lumpur on the first trip of the pilgrims of Malaysia, which arrived on Saturday at the Prince Muhammad Bin Abdul Aziz Airport in Madinah.

The pilgrims who arrive under the Makkah Road initiative have their fingerprints taken and passports stamped at the pilgrims’ country of departure and their entry into Saudi Arabia would be facilitated like a domestic flight while their baggage would be sent to their places of residence through the Ministry of Haj.

All pilgrims from Malaysia and a section of pilgrims from Indonesia will have their immigration pre-clearance facility from their embarkation points for this year’s Haj. The Proof of Concept (POC) System for pre-clearance at the point of departure to Saudi Arabia was implemented in coordination with the Saudi, Malaysian and Indonesian authorities. The uniform electronic path service has been dubbed as Makkah Road initiative.

Saudi, Malaysian and Indonesian officials, prepared in past weeks to launch the first pilgrim flights from the Kuala Lumpur and Soekarno-Hatta international airports.

Saudi Arabia has started implementing the Makkah Road service to finalize the pilgrims’ entrance procedures to Saudi Arabia from inside their home countries through unified electronic paths in the airports covered.

Makkah Road is one of the initiatives being implemented in coordination with the countries who have requested to participate and benefit from it. The initiative is part of the National Transition Programs (2020) to achieve the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. — Al Arabiya English