Sun, Apr 08, 2012 page11

• Airborne prayer problem solved for tech-savvy Muslims

  It is estimated that Muslim travelers will account for about 15% of global travel spending by 2020. The World Tourism Organization says that an additional 2 million Arabs will travel abroad over the next 20 years

  • By Martin Abbugao / AFP, SINGAPORE
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  As a frequent flier and devout Muslim, businessman Abdalhamid Evans always comes up against the same challenge in the air: when to say his prayers.

  Muslims are required to pray five times a day at certain hours, but this schedule becomes complicated when crossing various time zones thousands of meters above sea level.

  “I usually don’t pray when I am in a plane,” said Evans, the London-based founder of a Web site that provides information on the global halal, or Islam--compliant, industry.

  

  Crescentrating chief executive Fazal Bahardeen shows the Web site link to the Air Travel Prayer Time Calculator on his computer in Singapore on Tuesday. Many devout Muslims who face regular business travel find it hard to estimate when to say prayers while up in the air. One Singapore-based firm believes it has found the solution: the Air Travel Prayer Time Calculator.

  Photo: AFP

  “But lately I have been thinking that it is probably better to do them in the air than make them up on arrival,” he said.

  The problem may be solved for travelers such as Evans thanks to an innovation called the Air Travel Prayer Time Calculator, developed by -Singapore-based Crescentrating, a firm that gives halal ratings to hotels and other travel-related establishments.

  Launched earlier this month, the online tool takes data such as prayer times in the country of origin, the destination city and in countries on the flight path and uses an algorithm to plot exact prayer hours during a flight.

  Current programs only allow Muslims to find their prayer hours according to their position on land and the absence of any tools that can be used to calculate during a flight has compromised many travelers.

  “I knew there was lot of frustration among the travelers on this issue, but nobody had really attempted to solve it,” Crescentrating chief executive Fazal Bahardeen said in an interview.

  Before embarking on a trip, a Muslim traveler can now go to the online calculator on the Crescentrating Web site and input his or her departure airport, time of flight and destination. The calculator then comes up with the prayer times set either in the local time of the airport of origin, the destination city or the country that the aircraft is flying over, which the traveler can then e-mail to themselves to access later.

  His team also plans to develop a mobile app that will point the faithful in the direction of the Islamic holy city of Mecca, which Muslims must face when they pray, based on the flight path, Fazal said.

  Muslim travelers have welcomed the tool.

  “It is good for long-haul traveling,” said Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank vice president Shiraz Sideek, who travels up to a dozen times a year.

  “When you cross different times zones in an airplane, you have a problem of timing when to pray,” he said from Abu Dhabi. “The application sounds like a very unique thing and very useful.”

  Indonesian airline industry executive Sabry Salahudeen agreed that there is a potentially big market for the new tool.

  “I’ve been in the airline -industry for the past 20 plus years ... To my knowledge I do not think anyone has come up with anything like this,” said Salahudeen, who is vice president for airport operations and aircraft procurement at Pacific Royale Airways, a soon-to-be-launched premium airline in Indonesia.

  As more Muslims travel around the world, services catering to their needs are expanding, industry players say.

  In 2010, Muslim travelers spent US$100 billion, or about 10 percent of total global travel expenditure, Fazal said.

  This is projected to increase to between 14 percent and 15 percent of the global total by 2020.

  The World Tourism Organization last year estimated that an additional 2 million Arabs will travel overseas over the next 20 years, raising their region’s total of outbound tourists to 37 million.

  While it is still early days for the Air Travel Prayer Time Calculator, potential customers say mobility is important.

  “If it becomes a smartphone app ... it could prove to be a popular idea,” Evans said.
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