Airports across India gear up to receive stranded Indians abroad

KOCHI: Airports were geared up to receive Indian nationals stranded abroad due to the Coronavirus lockdown with Air India's repatriation flight from Abu Dhabi to Kochi on Thursday set to kickstart the country's biggest evacuation exercise by air and sea.

From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened ‘Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned AI operate 64 flights till May 13 in the first phase to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.

Private Indian airlines may join the repatriation effort after May 13.

As many as 10 flights are planned to be operated on the first day from various destinations abroad. Besides Kochi, the other cities where the flights are scheduled to land on Thursday are Kozhikode(kerala), Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Srinagar. Only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to board the flights.

The Cochin International Airport and Cochin Port have made all arrangements to receive the returning expatriates, Ernakulam District administration said.

Thermal scanners have been erected at the airport for the screening of the passengers and for quarantine facilities, while 4,000 houses with water, electricity and bath attached facilities have been arranged in Ernakulam district.

Entire synthetic/textile wrapped furniture were replaced with temporary plastic chairs,” an airport spokesman said.

The pilots and the cabin crew of the first batch of Air India Express evacuation flight were imparted training on handling of in-flight operations at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Doctors and nurses of a government medical college (Gmc)hospital in Kochi along with experts in handling COVID-19 patients briefed the 12 airline staff including four pilots.

The pilots and cabin crew were provided training on donning and doffing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) suits, infection control practices to be followed in-flight and also the management of anticipated health emergencies during the flight, hospital authorities said here.

A practical demonstration of both donning and doffing of PPE suits according to the protocol was also given to the crew.

The training given by GMC Ernakulam has helped to build up the confidence level of the entire crew considerably and we are now fully confident to undertake the rescue mission,” said Captain Paartha Sarkar.

For those arriving at Thiruvananthapuram, quarantine facilities have been arranged in six taluks to accommodate over 11,200 people and the government will bear the expenses.

Hotel rooms have been arranged for another 6,400 people for which they will have to pay, an official release said.

Various hostels, hotels, auditoriums have been taken for quarantine facilities of the Non-resident Keralites(nrks).

While all arrangements have been made by the state government to receive the NRKS, there is some confusion about the number of days passengers will have to undergo quarantine on arrival.

The state government has said passengers from abroad will have to undergo seven days quarantine on arrival at government arranged institutions and undergo tests after a week.

If found symptomatic, they will have to go to hospitals and those whose samples are found negative will be allowed to leave for home where they have to strictly follow home quarantine. But as per the Centre's guidelines, they will have to undergo 14 days institutional quarantine.