Tag: repatriation chartered flights

India’s national carrier Air India has started ticket bookings for five new flights from Dubai and Sharjah, scheduled to operate between July 11-14. The first of these flights, under the Vande Bharat Mission, will leave for Delhi from Dubai at 4 pm on Saturday. The rest of the flights will be from Sharjah. On Sunday, there will be two flights. Flight AI0904 will depart for Indore at 10.25am and AI1976 to Srinagar will depart at 11.40am. On July 13, there will be a flight to Chandigarh at 10.25am, followed by one to Ahmedabad on July 14. Announcing the schedule on ... Read more

Air India and Air India Express have confirmed that it will operate repatriation flights to the UAE to fetch stranded citizens from the country. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said that the repatriation flights will commence from July 12 and will go on till July 26. An agreement for the same has been signed between the civil aviation authorities of the two countries, putting an end to the long traumatic wait for hundreds of Indians, Khaleej Times has reported. Many are currently stranded in India since March when both the UAE and India closed their airspaces to curb the ... Read more

Air India Express, a subsidiary of Air India, has announced nine new flights connecting various south Indian cities from July 9-14. The move follows the UAE government’s objection to Vande Bharat Mission flights operated by Air India. Air India Express will operate these flights as part of the repatriation mission from Sharjah, according to the Indian Consulate in Dubai.  The flights will connect Madurai, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Kochi and Hyderabad. Indian nationals registered with the Embassy of India, Abu Dhabi or the Consulate-General of India in Dubai and fulfilling the required entry conditions can book through the Air India Express ... Read more

UAE-based Indian welfare groups are anxious about the fate of future repatriation flights from the country after two chartered flights to India could not take off on Saturday in the absence of approvals from authorities in India, according to a Khaleej Times report. The Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC), a welfare organisation, said the Etihad Airways EY254 flight that it had chartered from Abu Dhabi to Kozhikode on Saturday had to be cancelled ‘at the last moment’ because the Directorate of General Civil Aviation (DGCA) did not send the permissions necessary for it to land in India. As per the ... Read more

Air India will fly 114 flights while IndiGo and GoAir will operate 457 and 41 flights respectively between July 3 and July 15 under the fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, news agency PTI has reported. The government started the mega mission to evacuate stranded Indians from abroad on May 6. Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the fourth phase of the mission, Air India will operate 114 flights to India from 17 countries. Canada, the US, the UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, ... Read more

Eighteen international repatriation flights are expected to bring 3,630 expatriates to the Kochi airport today. Air India will operate a flight from Paris via Delhi and Azur Air is scheduled to operate a direct flight from Kiev in Ukraine. Repatriation flights from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Kuwait, Doha, Muscat, Paris and Ukraine are also scheduled to arrive on Saturday. On Friday, 21 flights brought 3,960 passengers at the airport. Rapid antibody tests were conducted on 85 passengers who arrived till 6pm. Meanwhile IndiGo airlines cancelled its Riyadh flight while SpiceJet rescheduled its Ras Al Khaimah flight to Saturday. The ... Read more

Medical testimonials are going to be a must to fly to Kerala from June 20. All passengers have to carry certificates stating that they are Covid-19 free, for the flights to get operational clearance. The policy applies to government sponsored Vande Bharat Mission and chartered flights equally, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said at a news briefing on Wednesday. Significantly, the chief minister said the state would have no issues in providing no-objection certificates to special flights comprising wholly of passengers who had tested positive at the port of departure. Kerala would receive them and treat them in State-run or commandeered ... Read more

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to prime minister Narendra Modi to consider arranging flights, exclusively for bringing COVID-19 infected Malayali patients from other countries. The move comes amid the controversy over the state government’s decision to make COVID-19 negative certificates mandatory for all expatriates coming from the Gulf countries on chartered flights. In the letter, Pinarayi Vijayan said the central government could ensure the availability of test kits in countries having large Indian diaspora. The embassies should be entrusted with the responsibility of holding tests for those unable to undergo tests at their own expense, he said. “If ... Read more

The Kerala government has made it mandatory for those boarding chartered flights to produce a certificate stating they have tested negative for Covid-19. Over one lakh expatriates are expected to reach Kerala from West Asian countries on chartered flights in coming weeks. The state has so far given sanction for 750 chartered flights. The direction by principal secretary E Ellangovan stated that this condition applies to all flights for which consent letters have been issued earlier. For cases in which a Covid-19 patient requires urgent medical care, air ambulance provision may be availed, it stated. Norka Roots, the non-resident Keralite welfare ... Read more

hartered flights from UAE to Kerala have become cheaper, with voluntary organisations like Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) securing nod to operate 70 of them. With this, around 1.25 lakh people from Gulf countries are likely to reach the state shortly. A total of 407 chartered flights are waiting for permission to fly to Kerala carrying NRIs stranded in these countries. The ticket rates in KMCC-chartered flights from UAE to Kozhikode have come down from AED 1250 (around Rs 25,000) earlier this month, to AED 990 (around Rs 20,000) for the flight operated on June 11, according to a report ... Read more