If your Umrah flight moved to another airport after you booked the transfer, treat the arrival as a new journey rather than a changed time. A pickup at Jeddah and a pickup at Madinah start in different cities, run on different roads and may even reverse the order in which your family visits Makkah and Madinah. The quickest safe route is to write down the new itinerary in full, contact the booking team about the existing booking before you cancel anything, and only then book the corrected journey.
This guide is for the organiser, often a son or daughter planning from home, whose airline has sent a revised itinerary with a different arrival airport for parents or relatives. It explains what changes on the ground, why the online “new pickup time” request cannot fix it, how to handle the old booking without losing money unnecessarily, what to ask the airline, and how to check every later journey in the trip. It ends with a checklist you can work through in one sitting.
Why a new airport is a new journey, not a new time
Every Pilgrim Taxi journey is built from a fixed set of details: one pickup place, one destination, a pickup date and time in Saudi local time (UTC+3), and the number of passengers and bags. The price and the vehicle options are worked out from those details.
When an airline moves your arrival from Jeddah to Madinah, the pickup place changes. That is not an adjustment to a journey; it is a different journey. The road, the distance, the price and the vehicle availability can all be different.
This matters because of how changes work in your account. Only the pickup time can be changed online. The pickup place, destination, number of passengers and vehicle cannot. If you send a “Request a new pickup time” for a journey that still says Jeddah, you will simply end up with a driver waiting at the wrong airport at a new time.
So the first rule is simple: do not try to squeeze an airport change into a time change. If the airline changed arrival airport, Umrah transport has to be rebuilt from the pickup place outwards. Our note on keeping airline and transport changes separate explains why an airline email never updates a ground booking by itself.
What actually changes on the ground
The two airports that serve most pilgrims are far apart. King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah is described by its operator as the gateway to the Two Holy Mosques, with Terminal 1, the North Terminal and the Hajj and Umrah Complex listed on its official airport overview. Madinah is served by Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport, operated by Tibah Airports.
The live route checks in our booking system give a sense of the scale of the change:
| Arrival airport | First hotel | Road distance (about) | What it means for the first day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeddah | Central Makkah (Clock Tower area) | 95 km | Short intercity drive; Makkah first |
| Madinah | Central Makkah (Clock Tower area) | 460 km | Long drive after a long flight |
| Madinah | Madinah Hilton | 20 km | Short city drive; Madinah first |
| Jeddah | Madinah Hilton | 397 km | Long drive; Madinah first from Jeddah |
Road distances differ by direction because of one-way systems and junctions, so always read the route summary for your own search. We do not quote journey times, because they vary widely with traffic, season and time of day.
The table shows why the same hotel booking can produce very different arrival days. A family landing in Jeddah and heading to a Makkah hotel has a short transfer. The same family landing in Madinah and keeping the Makkah hotel faces a long road journey on arrival.
Does your city order need to change too?
Many families plan their trip around the arrival airport. Landing in Jeddah usually means Makkah first; landing in Madinah usually means Madinah first. Our pages on starting a plan in Jeddah and a plan in Madinah set out how each order shapes the transfers.
When the airline moves the airport, you have two broad choices:
- Keep the hotels as booked and accept a long first transfer (for example Madinah Airport to Makkah, about 460 km).
- Swap the city order so the first stay matches the new airport, which means changing hotel dates with the hotels or your agent.
Neither choice is automatically right. A long drive after an overnight flight is tiring, especially for older parents, but hotel changes may not be possible or affordable at short notice. Ask the hotels first, because their answer decides which ground journeys you need.
There is also a religious side. A change of arrival city can affect when and where pilgrims enter ihram. We do not give rulings. Please ask a qualified scholar, and read the official guidance on Nusuk, the official platform for Hajj and Umrah.
Contact the booking team before you cancel anything
This is the step that protects your money.
Bookings are subject to our cancellation terms (free cancellation with a full refund up to 48 hours before pickup; inside 48 hours the deposit element of the price is kept) if the customer cancels. If you open your account and press “Request cancellation or refund” on the Jeddah booking before speaking to anyone, the booking team has to treat it as a customer cancellation. The full terms are in our cancellation and refund policy.
A full refund for the affected journey applies only when we or the transport partner cancel, or cannot supply the journey and no suitable alternative is accepted. An airline changing its schedule does not, by itself, turn your cancellation into ours.
What you can do is ask. The booking team can look at an existing booking and tell you what is possible for the new airport. Changing a pickup place is something only the booking team can handle; it cannot be done online. They will explain what applies to your booking before you decide.
What to send the booking team
Send one clear message through the contact page that includes:
- your booking reference for the affected journey;
- the old arrival airport and the new one, in words (“was Jeddah, now Madinah”);
- the new flight number and the new scheduled landing date and time in Saudi local time;
- the destination hotel, and whether it is staying the same;
- the number of passengers and large bags, unchanged or not;
- whether any later journeys in the trip are affected.
Name the change precisely. If you need to switch pickup from Jeddah to Madinah Airport, say so in exactly those words. “Our flight has been changed” invites the wrong fix. “The airline has moved our arrival from Jeddah to Madinah” tells the reader straight away that the pickup place is different.
Wait for a written answer
Do not tell relatives that the new arrival is sorted because you have sent a message. A request is pending until the booking team replies. Keep the old booking in place until you have their answer in writing.
The two routes to a corrected booking
Once you have heard back, the new arrival will be covered in one of two ways.
| Situation | Likely route | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Booking team can handle the change on the existing booking | Amendment by the booking team | Check the updated details and wait for the status to read Confirmed |
| Existing booking cannot be moved to the new airport | New booking for the new airport, plus a decision about the old one | Book the new journey in the ride finder, then follow the booking team’s advice on the old booking |
| Only the landing time changed, same airport | Online time change | Use “Request a new pickup time” in your account |
| Terminal changed at the same airport | Note to the booking team | Send the new terminal; the pickup place stays the airport |
The last two rows are included because families often confuse them with an airport change. A later landing at the same airport is a time change. A different terminal at Jeddah is useful information for the driver, but the booking still starts at Jeddah Airport.
If you need a new booking, it follows the normal rules. Payment secures a provisional request, the booking team updates the status within 1 to 12 hours, and the journey is booked only when your account shows Confirmed. Each journey has a minimum booking value equivalent to £40.
The 48-hour rule and late airline changes
Online bookings need at least 48 hours’ notice before pickup. If you search for a new Madinah arrival that lands less than 48 hours from now, the ride finder will show: “This journey must be booked at least 48 hours in advance.”
Airlines sometimes change schedules weeks ahead, and sometimes a few days before departure. Two practical points follow.
First, act on the airline email the day it arrives. Every day you wait reduces your options, both for the new booking and for any hotel changes.
Second, if the change reaches you inside 48 hours, contact the booking team directly and explain. There is no guarantee that a short-notice journey can be supplied, so ask early, and have a fallback plan agreed with the travelling party in case the answer is no.
What to ask the airline
The airline, not the transfer company, made this change, so the airline is where questions about your rights belong.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) brought in updated passenger rights regulations in November 2023. According to GACA’s announcement, the rules cover disruptions across the journey, including delays, cancellations and overbooking. Passengers should contact their airline first, and if they do not receive an adequate response within seven days, they can ask GACA to investigate.
We cannot tell you what compensation or options apply to your ticket. That depends on the airline, the route and the regulations that cover the flight. Ask the airline, in writing:
- whether the change was made by the airline and on what date;
- what alternatives they offer, including a return to the original airport if you need it;
- whether a refund or a different flight is available if the new airport does not work for your family.
Keep the airline’s replies with your own trip records, not mixed into your transport messages. If the airline later moves you back to the original airport, you will need to tell the booking team again.
A worked example: the Rahman family
Samira Rahman lives in Leicester and is organising Umrah for her parents, Abdul and Nasreen, both in their seventies. She booked a Pilgrim Taxi transfer from Jeddah Airport to the Hilton Hotel & Convention Jabal Omar in Makkah, then a Makkah to Madinah journey five days later, and a final Madinah Hilton to Madinah Airport departure.
Three weeks before travel, the airline emails a revised itinerary. The flight now lands at Madinah, on the same date.
Samira’s first instinct is to request a new pickup time and add a note. She stops, because the pickup place is the problem, not the time.
Step 1: the full picture. She writes the new arrival in one sentence: “Abdul and Nasreen now land at Madinah Airport on the same date, new flight number, landing in the evening Saudi time.” She checks the landing time on the airline booking, not on a forwarded screenshot.
Step 2: the hotels. She asks both hotels whether the stays can be swapped. The Madinah hotel can take her parents from the arrival date; the Makkah hotel can move its dates to the second half of the trip. With the order swapped, the first transfer becomes Madinah Airport to the Madinah hotel, about 20 km, instead of about 460 km to Makkah.
Step 3: the booking team. Before touching the account, she sends one message with the booking reference, “was Jeddah, now Madinah”, the new flight number, and a note that the later Makkah to Madinah journey will now run in the opposite direction.
Step 4: the corrected bookings. The booking team explains what they can do for the arrival booking. Samira then uses the ride finder for the journeys that are genuinely new, including a Madinah to Makkah transfer and a departure from Makkah that suits her parents’ flight home. The departure airport has not changed, so she checks it carefully against the return ticket.
Step 5: the record. She waits for each journey to show Confirmed, then updates the family’s single travel sheet and deletes the old Jeddah plan from it.
What made this work was the order: airline itinerary, hotels, booking team, then new bookings. Had she cancelled first and asked later, the cancellation would have been treated as hers.
Check every later journey, not just the arrival
An airport change rarely stops at the first transfer. Go through the whole trip and ask of each journey: does it still start and end where it says?
- The intercity transfer. If the city order swaps, a Makkah to Madinah journey may become Madinah to Makkah. That is a different journey with a different pickup place and destination, and it needs the booking team or a new booking. The routing engine gives about 439 km for Makkah to Madinah; check the reverse direction in your own search.
- The departure. If only the arrival airport changed, the departure may be fine. If the airline also moved the return flight, treat that journey the same way as the arrival.
- Any day trips. A visit booked from a Makkah hotel on a particular date may now fall while the family is in Madinah.
Our guide to changing one journey without changing the rest walks through how to adjust one leg while leaving confirmed ones alone.
Where only a time needs to change on a later journey, you can request it in your account. An approved new pickup time carries a £5 rescheduling fee, converted into the booking currency and added to the cash paid to the driver at pickup. A rejected request costs nothing. Only one open time request per booking is allowed, so send one accurate request rather than several guesses.
When the change goes the other way
The same thinking applies when an airline moves a Madinah arrival to Jeddah.
A family planning Madinah first, with a short hop of about 20 km from Madinah Airport to the Madinah Hilton, now faces a choice. They can keep Madinah first and travel about 397 km from Jeddah Airport to the Madinah Hilton. Or they can swap to Makkah first, with a transfer of about 95 km from Jeddah Airport to central Makkah.
The second option is shorter on the arrival day, but it changes the order of the whole trip and, as before, raises questions about ihram that should go to a scholar and the official Nusuk guidance. Talk to the hotels first, then the booking team, then book.
Keeping the travelling party informed
The organiser at home usually knows about the change first. The travellers may only hear about it through a family chat, which is where confusion starts.
Once the new bookings read Confirmed:
- send one final message with the new arrival airport, flight, date, hotel and booking reference;
- delete or clearly mark any old screenshot of the Jeddah plan as cancelled;
- tell the travellers exactly what the status says, without rounding “requested” up to “booked”.
Our note on writing one final message for the travelling party has a template that works well for this.
Checklist: redoing the airport transfer after a change
- Read the new airline itinerary in full and write the arrival in one sentence: airport, date, landing time in Saudi local time, flight number.
- Confirm whether the airport changed, or only the time or terminal.
- Ask the hotels whether dates or city order can change, and get their answer.
- Do not cancel the existing booking yet. Customer cancellations are subject to our cancellation terms (free cancellation with a full refund up to 48 hours before pickup; inside 48 hours the deposit element of the price is kept).
- Contact the booking team with the booking reference and “was X, now Y”.
- Wait for a written reply explaining what can be done with the existing booking.
- Book any genuinely new journeys, allowing at least 48 hours’ notice.
- Check that each journey meets the £40 minimum booking value and has the right passengers and bags.
- Recheck every later journey: intercity transfer, day visits and departure.
- Use the online time request only for journeys where the time alone has changed.
- Raise disruption questions with the airline in writing, and escalate to GACA if there is no adequate reply within seven days.
- Wait for Confirmed on every journey, then send one updated message to the travellers.
When you know the new arrival airport and the hotels have answered, open the Pilgrim Taxi ride finder to check the corrected route and vehicle options, and contact the booking team first about the journey you already hold.