Kenya Airways has doubled the frequency of flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia ahead of this year’s Hajj season.

Between September 3, 2013 and November 10, 2013, the airline will increase the number of flights to Jeddah, the gateway to the Islamic holy city of Mecca, from the current twice weekly to four times a week.

This year’s Hajj season that is marked annually by Muslims with a pilgrimage to Mecca will be observed in October.

The additional flights are timed to enable connections to Jeddah from key markets in Africa such as Dzaoudzi in the Comoros, Lagos in Nigeria, Douala in Cameroon, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lilongwe in Malawi and Johannesburg in South Africa.

Under the new schedule the route will be operated by flight code KQ 330 and KQ 331 on each of the four days. Flight KQ 330 will depart from Nairobi at 2025 hours, arriving at Jeddah at 0025 hours the following day. The return flight KQ 331 from Jeddah will take off at 0145 hours, landing in Nairobi at 0545 hours.