A TRAVEL agency will be making history as it sends 240 East Lancashire Muslims on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Flight Care Travel, of Blackburn, has secured the first-ever direct flight from the North West.

The firm spent months negotiating with Saudi Arabian authorities and securing a special licence for the flight from Manchester to Jeddah. Seats for the journey sold out within three weeks and the company plans to expand the service to two or three flights next year.

Hundreds of thousands of faithful from all over the world make the trip to Islam's most holy city every year for the Haj pilgrimage. At least one pilgrimage must be completed in a lifetime, if a person can afford it. Flight Care Travel's manager Tafegad Hussain said: "We're very pleased to have been able to secure the chartered flight with Royal Jordanian Airlines .

"It was hard work but it will make a big difference to people here because they won't have to travel to London. It was so popular that we could have sold more seats if we'd had the room." About 75 per cent of the firm's business is with ethnic minorities, arranging trips to such places as Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The East Lancashire group will leave Manchester on April 13 and return a month later.

They will perform a series of rituals as well as visiting holy shrines.

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