Originally Posted by
Transpacificflyer
There is no demand for direct flight service to KSA . None.
- All religious pilgrimage activity has been suspended since March 4. The haj only has about 2.5 million attendees worldwide and it is during the summer. Even in the best of times, the number of visas allocated to Canada for hajj and umrah activity was negligible. My understanding that Canada gets less than 1000 hajj visa.
...and hajj only lasts a few weeks, not remotely enough to support even a seasonal service. Three or four charter flights would cover Canada's entire demand.
This is why Saudia leases in so many planes for hajj season, and why Malaysia has been looking at refitting 380s to handle both hajj and umrah traffic from parts of the world with a substantially larger base of potential pilgrims than Canada.