Ramadan Kareem!
All you need to know about it and how to manage your customers on your Private Jet.
The month of Ramadan is a very important period for the Islamic culture.
In 2021, it will be celebrated between April 13th and May 12th.
Therefore, there are few things you should take into consideration when the customer on board your Private Jet are Arabic, or Muslim in general.
What’s about?
Ramadan is the 9th month of the Islamic calendar, which has 355 days: ten days shorter than the Gregorian calendar.
Consequently, Ramadan will happen to always be 10 days earlier than the previous year.
The after-Ramadan-celebration is called Eid-al-Fitr and last for up 3 days. This is like Christmas for Catholics.
During the month of Ramadan the devotes follow the fast from sunrise to sunset.
They are not allow to drink or eat anything during the entire day.
This practise is made to rise their sprit and commemorate the first time that the holy book, the Qu’ran, has been showed to the prophet Mohammed.
Are exempted from fasting young children, pregnant ladies, people with health issues, all ladies affected by their monthly periods (the exception is reduced to those days only).
At sunset they celebrate the fasting brake with a meal called “Iftar”, which is a big celebration, similar to the Christians’ Christmas Eve.
The first thing they consume are dates, to quickly replenish the level of sugar in the blood.
Then, an abundant, succulent and rich meal will follow.
They drink and eat only during the night and it happens they consume even two or three meals in few hours.
Usually they mainly sleep during the day.
Fasting Customers: dos and don’ts
When you travel on a Private Jet with fasting customers observing Ramadan, make sure there’s nothing displayed in the cabin, galley and lavatories. No food or drinks of any kind, not even water.
They probably would like to pray when the time is right (they pray 5 times a day).
Make sure you are aware of the direction of Mecca during the flight to be able to indicate them where to pray.
Consume your meal or drinks always with discretion and keep the galley door closed to reduce visibility.
Iftar comes at sunset, and it’s always the local sunset of the place you departed from or where they started their fasting.
Make sure you calculate your timings and be ready to serve the meal exactly at sunset.
You can double check with the customers at what time they would like to break the fast.
Flights to Jeddah
In 2021, Ramadan will be celebrated between April 13th and May 12th.
It may happen that your flights during this amount of time have destination Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia.
The city is a big gateway for pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina.
It’s pretty important for them to manage and do the Hajj, the pilgrims, to the Holy City during Ramadan.
In this case, starting from one hour before landing they have to go trough a spiritual and religious procedure to get ready.
Gentlemen will use the lavatory, wash themselves and get changed with old, white towels wrapped around the body, one for the hips and the second one around the chest and shoulder.
This is the pilgrim uniform.
This outfit has the aim to make them look all the same, and be equal in front of the prophet.
Ladies usually do not change their cloths.
Afterwards, gents will start a spiritual procedure made of a sequence of prays.
It’s important that they are not interrupted or touched from a lady until the last pray is over.
If touched, even accidentally, they need to start over again.
As sign of respect it is important that ladies VIP flight attendant have always their arms and legs covered.
Consider to wear trousers during this flights.
Usually, Mecca sees over 2 millions devote pilgrims during Ramadan.
After covid they had been dropped to 10 thousand in 2020.