Air India to operate 149 repatriation flights to 31 countries in phase II
‘Making serious attempts to help pregnant woman, her family board flight from US’
NEW DELHI: Air India is planning to operate 149 repatriation flights to 31 countries between May 16 and May 22 during the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission to bring back home Indians stranded abroad amid the Coronavirustriggered lockdown, officials said. During the first phase of the Vande Bharat mission, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express are scheduled to operate total 64 flights between May 7 and May 14 to bring approximately 15,000 Indians from 12 countries on a payment basis.
"In the second phase, Air India and Air India Express will operate 149 flights to countries such as the USA, the UAE, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Malaysia, Oman, Kazakhstan, Australia, Ukraine, Qatar and Indonesia," the airline officials stated.
Other countries to where the national carrier would operate flights between May 16 and May 22 are Russia, Philippines, France, Singapore, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Japan, Georgia, Germany and Tajikistan, officials noted.
The flights during the second phase will also be operated to Bahrain, Armenia, Thailand, Italy, Nepal, Belarus, Nigeria and Bangladesh, they mentioned.
The officials stated that out of the aforementioned 149 repatriation flights, 31 would land in Kerala, 22 in Delhi, 17 in Karnataka, 16 in Telangana, 14 in Gujarat, 12 in Rajasthan, nine in Andhra Pradesh and seven in Punjab.
During phase II of the Vande Bharat mission, six flights each would have as their destinations Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, three flights Odisha, two will land in Chandigarh, one each will reach Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express have operated 31 inbound flights during the first five days of Vande Bharat mission, bringing 6,037 stranded Indians home amid the Coronavirus triggered lockdown, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said on Tuesday.
India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel Coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country till now. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended for the
lockdown period.
NEW DELHI: The Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it is making a "serious attempt" to assist an Indian woman, who is in advanced stage of pregnancy and stranded in USA along with her husband and minor daughter due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so that they are able to board a San Francisco-bengaluru flight which is scheduled for tomorrow.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated this before a bench, headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao, which was hearing through video-conferencing a plea filed by the Bengaluru-based couple and their minor daughter seeking direction to the Centre to make arrangement for bringing them back to India by flight scheduled on May 13 from San Francisco or at the next earliest possible opportunity.
"The Solicitor General stated that taking note of the health condition of the petitioner No. one (woman), a serious attempt is being made to assist the petitioners to board the flight from San Francisco to Bangalore scheduled to leave tomorrow," the bench said.
"The writ petition stands disposed of as no further orders are necessary," said the bench, also comprising Justices S A Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna.
The plea, which was argued by advocate Anand Sanjay Nuli, had also sought a direction to the Indian Embassy in the US to take appropriate measure to ensure that the woman has access to proper medical facilities till she is repatriated to India.
It had said that absence of proper medical facilities to her would prove fatal to both the woman and the fetus.