A Vatican charter flight service took to the skies on Monday as a Boeing 737 decorated in the Holy See's yellow and white colours transported a cardinal and other pilgrims from Rome to Lourdes.
The flight to Lourdes, where Saint Bernadette is said to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary, marked the launch of a service that the Vatican hopes will soon be speeding 150,000 Catholic pilgrims a year to key religious destinations.
"Safety is our priority along with a commitment to keep ticket prices as low as possible," said Father Cesare Atuire, head of ORP, the Vatican organisation which organises pilgrimages.
"We'll also create an atmosphere in keeping with the meaning of pilgrimages," he added.
The head-rests on seats inside the plane which took off on Monday bore the inscription: Lord, I'm looking for Your face. Officials said religious films would also be shown during the flight.
Although the pope goes on several foreign trips every year, the Vatican has no airport and owns no planes. Benedict usually flies with Italian airline Alitalia.
The new low-cost charter service is the result of a partnership between ORP and Mistral Air, a small Italian airline owned by the Italian post office.
The accord provides for flights from a range of Italian airports to Fatima in Portgual, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Czestochowa in Poland, Mount Sinai in Egypt and other sites in the Middle East.
"This initiative is important because it aims to compress costs and make flights available to as wide a range of people as possible," said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, one of the passengers on the maiden flight.
Ruini, formerly head of the Italian bishops' conference, said he hoped the service would help increase the number of Catholics making pilgrimages to the Middle East.
He acknowledged however that many potential pilgrims would only go when there was peace in the region.
The managing director of Mistral Air, Francesco Pizzo, welcomed his company's new five-year partnership with the Vatican as a way of introducing a "spiritual" element into its activity.
"For us it's a good launch pad allowing us to move into the religious tourism sector," he said.
