UAE, India to operate 15 special flights for stranded residents
‘Indian carriers operating repatriation flights & UAE carriers operating charter flights to bring Indian citizens from UAE to India can now carry ICA approved UAE residents from India to UAE’
The UAE and India have agreed to operate special flights to repatriate Indians and bring back stranded residents between the two countries.
The flights will operate for 15 days starting from July 12, and continue till 26 July.
India’s Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs and Civil Aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri, said on Twiter, “Indian carriers operating repatriation flights & UAE carriers operating charter flights to bring Indian citizens from UAE to India can now carry ICA approved UAE residents from India to UAE. This arrangement will be in place for a period of 15 days from 12-26 July, 2020.
As part of the close strategic partnership between the Govts of India & UAE, and with a view to assisting UAE residents who are presently in India to return to UAE, the Civil Aviation Authorities of both countries have agreed to operationalise a special arrangement.”
The information issued by Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation ( MOCA) on repatriation flights to UAE reads, “As part of the close strategic partnership between the Governments of India and the UAE, and with a view to assisting UAE resident nationals who are presently in India to return to the UAE, the Civil Aviation Authorities of both countries have agreed to operationalise the following arrangement from 12 July, 2020:
“Charter flights operated by UAE carriers to bring Indian citizens from UAE to India will be allowed to carry ICA approved UAE residents (returning to UAE from India) on their return leg (India to UAE).
“Indian carriers operating repatriation flights to bring Indian citizens from UAE to India will be allowed to carry the ICA approved UAE residents (returning to UAE from India) on the outward journey from India to UAE.
“On the India to UAE journey, all these flights will carry only those passengers who are destined for the UAE.
“This arrangement will be initially in place for a period of 15 days. i.e. from 12 July 2020 to 26 July 2020 ater which it will be reviewed, as required.”
India has over-taken Russia with the world’s third-highest number of novel coronavirus cases, at nearly 700,000, according to the latest data, as the outbreak shows no sign of slowing.
According to health ministry data, there have been almost 20,000 deaths in India since the first case was detected there in January.
India is now the world’s third worst-affected country, behind only the United States and Brazil.
It has seen eight times the number of cases as China, that has a similar-sized population and is where the virus originated late last year.
Officials said they had reversed a decision to reopen the Taj Mahal, India’s most famous tourist atraction, in the city of Agra, 200 km (125 miles) southeast of New Delhi, on Monday, following a spate of new cases in the area.
Airline major Spicejet will operate 19 more flights under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) in July to help evacuate nearly 4,500 Indians still stranded in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.
“The airline has operated six flights under the VBM from Ras Al-khaimah, Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam so far, bringing back over 1,000 Indians to Ahmedabad, Goa and Jaipur,” a Spicejet statement said on Monday.
“The airline will operate 19 more flights this month from Ras Al-khaimah, Jeddah, Dammam, Riyadh and Muscat to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mumbai.”
Besides VBM, the airline has operated over 200 charter flights from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka to evacuate over 30,000 stranded Indians.
In addition, Spicejet has flown 3,512 cargo flights since the lockdown began on March 25 and ferried around 20,200 tonnes of cargo.
The World Bank has commited $2.75 billion to support India’s emergency COVID-19 response since the pandemic began earlier this year, the Bank and the Indian government jointly announced here today.
The occasion for the announcement was provided by the signing today of a $750 million loan agreement for a Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, MSMES, Emergency Response Programme to support the increased flow of finance into the hands of such enterprises in India which have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.