National carrier Air India’s first standalone evacuation flight under the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ landed at the national capital’s IGI Airport from Singapore on Friday.
The AI381 flight landed at around 11.50 am with 234 passengers, who were stranded in the foreign land due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown.
The flight had taken off from the IGI Airport at around 11.20 am on Thursday night
“Seeing people coming home is the best feeling for Delhi Airport. Here’s a glimpse of the first Evacuation flight AI381 to Delhi that landed a short while ago from Changi Airport,” tweeted Delhi Airport on the citizens’ arrival.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the state has made necessary arrangements for Indian nationals coming back to the country today under the massive ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ launched to repatriate stranded citizens from foreign countries.
As the first batch of international evacuees landed in India amid tight medical supervision, Le Meridien is one of the many hotels where some of them will be kept quarantined from Friday onward. The hotel, which has been shut ever since the nationwide lockdown began, partially opened for this purpose with rooms being readied by people wearing PPE units.
Besides Air India, the national carrier’s subsidiary Air India Express has also operated flights under the evacuation programme undertaken by the government.
Two Air India flights arrived in Kerala on Thursday night. The first flight landed at Kochi from Abu Dhabi with 177 passengers around 10.05 pm, while the second flight at Kozhikode from Dubai with 182 passengers.
The Government has announced 64 repatriation flights between May 7 and May 13 to bring nearly 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries in the biggest evacuation exercise in world history.
Overall, more than 190,000 Indian nationals, who would have to pay a one-way ferry service charge, are expected to be brought back in the airlift operation that might last couple of weeks or even more.
These special flights would be operated by Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express to repatriate Indians from 12 countries — the UAE, the UK, the US, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.
The Government is also deploying a raft of Indian naval ships to undertake the massive exercise. A total of 14 warships have been readied for evacuating Indian citizens from Gulf and other countries amidst the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Indian Navy’s INS Jalashwa had reached the Male port in Maldives on Thursday under its ‘Operation Samudra Setu’ to evacuate Indian citizens stranded there amid the lockdown.