ROME – A senior Vatican cardinal will inaugurate a low-cost charter flight service that aims to transport Catholic pilgrims to holy sites using a small charter airline owned by the Italian post office.
BBC Online reports that the airline expects to transport around 150,000 pilgrims in its first year. Then inaugural flight will take off for Lourdes in France.
Flights will initially go to Catholic shrines in France, Poland, Spain as well as the Middle East.
There are plans to include Mexico in the schedule later on.
The Vatican has signed a five-year agreement through its local travel organisation which handles pilgrimages for the Diocese of Rome.
The charter airline, called Mistral Air, normally carries courier cargo, letters and parcels for the Italian post office.
The Vatican itself has no airline and no airport, just a helipad used by the Pope for local journeys with the Italian air force providing helicopter transport.
But Mistral Air’s two charter jets are already painted in the Vatican colours of yellow and white, and interiors are decorated with sacred inscriptions such as, “I search for your face, Lord.”
