On Wednesday, a Lebanese pilgrim on a flight back from Hajj in Mecca passed away mid-air after having suffered a sudden medical emergency, The Daily Star reported.  

Identified as S.T.R., the 57-year-old woman was on a Middle East Airlines (MEA) flight en-route to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia when the incident took place. No doctor was on board the flight and so the woman was attended to by the plane's staff, who administered oxygen to her. 

Though the deceased did initially gain consciousness, she died by the time the aircraft had landed.

After the plane arrived in Beirut, the airport's doctor Michel al-Khoury Hanna examined her and pronounced her dead. 

Speaking to press, a source at MEA confirmed that the pilgrim died on the plane while it was flying over Syrian airspace but could not give a statement on the cause of death. The woman's family was informed of the tragic incident and her body was transferred to Al-Rassoul al-Aazam Hospital. 

Earlier this month, two other Lebanese nationals also died while in the kingdom to perform the Islamic pilgrimage. One of them passed away during sa'y - "a part of the pilgrimage where worshipers walk back and forth between as-Safa and al-Marwah hills." The second person died from a heart attack shortly after arriving in Saudi Arabia.

A source at MEA previously revealed that over 20,700 pilgrims left Beirut via Lebanon's flag carrier to make the pilgrimage to Mecca this year. The first group of pilgrims to leave the country were greeted by Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon Walid Al-Bukhari. 

At the time, Al-Bukhari explained that out of 20,000 Hajj permits issued to people in Lebanon, 10,000 visas were allocated to Lebanese citizens. Also, 6,000 were granted to Syrian refugees and 1,500 were given to Palestinian refugees residing in the country. 

Saudi Arabia has eased up the visa process for tourists - on religious or leisure visits - in recent months. It looks like expat employees are now getting a taste of the facilitated process. 

This week, Saudi Arabia announced that private sector firms will now be able to get instant visas for foreign workers, a process that used to take around eight months previously. In order to be granted an instant visa, the company must be enrolled in the kingdom's "nationalization program" and must have witnessed an increase in its Saudi workforce. Only firms in the medium green category and above, in terms of "percentage of Saudis in the workforce," are eligible to use the service. 

The kingdom has been attempting to reduce its reliance on foreign labor to see the "Saudization" process turn into a reality. Nationalizing the workforce is part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, so the most recent decision only applies to countries working in line with the kingdom's goals.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Development made the announcement on Monday through its Qiwa electronic portal, an initiative that aims at digitizing and consolidating employment services in the country. Not only must the company prove an increase in national workers, but also be in full compliance with the ministry's overall regulations. 

Companies must also tick off several other things to be eligible for using the new service, one of which has to do with career advertising, according to the Saudi Gazette. 

The newly launched service may help grow the Saudization rates in the kingdom. At the same time, it is offering a facilitated visa process as a "reward" to companies for complying with the program. 

In recent years, non-Saudis have seen fewer job opportunities available to them. The number of foreign workers declined by 6 percent in the first three months of 2018; more than 234,000 expats left the kingdom during the same period. In just 18 months, more than 800,000 expats had left the country. The number exceeds an estimation in 2017 which claimed 670,000 expats would leave Saudi Arabia by 2020. However, during the peak of it all, the Saudi unemployment rate reached an all-time high.

According to a 2019 report, the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia dropped in the third quarter of last year. The rate went up to 12.9 percent in the first quarter of 2018, but decreased down to 12.8 percent in the third quarter. The spike came after the kingdom introduced a 5 percent value-added-tax (VAT), which impacted private employers. 

The kingdom has passed several orders to ensure the Saudization process checks out including one that terminates all contracts pertaining to expatriate workers in governments and ministries within three years and another that nationalizes jobs in shopping malls. 

In 2017, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Labor and Social Development issued an order reducing the validity of expat work visas for private-sector employees in the country from two years to one year. In November 2017, the Ministry of Labor and Development arrested a number of expats caught working in nationalized sectors. It also warned violators of deportation.

Vision 2030 also aims at developing non-oil-related industries, supporting small and medium enterprises, increasing the participation of Saudi women in the workforce, and creating a broader investment base in the country.