Makassar, S Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - Garuda Indonesia will fly 114,094 hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia starting on Friday, its vice president for corporate communications, Pujubroto, said.

In a press statement on Friday he said the hajj pilgrims would depart from 10 embarkation points namely Jakarta, Makassar, Solo, Surabaya, Medan, Banda Aceh, Banjarmasin, Balikpapan, Padang and Palembang.

He said departures would last until November 21 while arrivals of the hajj pilgrims would begin on December 2 to January 1, 2010.

The pilgrims have been grouped in 302 batches and they would be flown using wide-bodied aircraft consisting of nine A330-300s, four B-747s, one B-767-300Ers and one B-777-200.

All of the planes were made after 1990 such as the A-330-300 which was made between 1996-2009, he said.

Pujobroto said around 770 cabin crew had been made ready to serve the hajj pilgrims and some of them hailed from the embarkation point regions especially to serve pilgrims who could only speak local languages.(*)