On Tuesday at around 9.30 am, an Air India flight took off from the Thiruvananthapuram airport carrying with it German and other European nationals, after days of ground work by scores of tourism department officials.
“Kerala Tourism is happy that we could be of assistance to tourists to enable them to return home during this crisis,” Kerala Tourism secretary Rani George has said. The Department of Tourism and the Consulate of Germany worked together for the successful repatriation of the 232 tourists.
For the last one week, the officials of the department of tourism and the various help desks have been working tirelessly to contact all these tourists and arrange transportation for them to reach Thiruvananthapuram.
The Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany had come forward to operate charter flights to repatriate German nationals and European nationals stranded in India. Those tourists who were asymptomatic and have completed 14 days in Kerala or tested negative were eligible for repatriation.
“I would like to mention the efforts of Biju DD marketing, Sajeev TIO and Ramesh TIO at the Directorate. They were supported by the JDs, DDs and DTPC secretaries in the concerned districts. The KTDC MD came forward to provide Samudra, Mascot and Chaitram hotels for the accommodation of the tourists and offered the convention centre at Samudra to set up the registration centre,” Rani George said.
She also thanked the police, medical team, home department, health department and the airport staff for all the arrangements. “I would like to record my appreciation to all who have contributed to the repatriation. It was a great team work,” she added.
