On a Wing and a Prayer
BBC: The chartered flight service being launched by a Vatican-linked travel organisation along with an Italian airline has both lofty and more mundane goals. It aims to provide a journey of faith for pilgrims as well as turning a profit.

You can forget the complimentary bag of salted peanuts and plastic pot of orange juice because each plane ticket will come with unlimited spiritual refreshment, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi (ORP) suggests.

Flights are planned from Rome to many of the sites which draw hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims seeking solace and or doing penance each year.

Monday's inaugural passengers are due to travel from the Italian capital to an airport just 10 minutes from the shrine of Lourdes in France.

But from December, planes emblazoned inside and out with the logo "Seeking your face, Lord" will be dropping off energetic faithful near Spain's Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, as well as at Poland's Czestochowa sanctuary and at the shrine to Fatima, in Portugal.

Increasing demand

There will also be flights to Jerusalem in Israel and Sinai in Egypt, and special plans are even under way to jet thousands of young people to Sydney for the World Youth Congress next year. Budget flights of faith (more) By Stephanie Holmes

See a map of the pilgrimage flight routes

Mark Alexander

Vatican Plans Budget Flights for Christian Pilgrims
BBC: The Vatican is to launch a low-cost charter flight service to transport pilgrims to holy sites worldwide.

The inaugural flight on 27 August will go from Rome to Lourdes in France.

A small Italian airline, Mistral, will provide the planes, with the interiors decorated with sacred inscriptions such as: "I search for your face, Lord."

Other destinations could include Fatima in Portugal and Santiago di Compostela in Spain, the Holy Land, Poland and a Catholic shrine in Mexico. Vatican plans flights to shrines (more)

Mark Alexander