India denies approval to UAE repatriation charter flights
Plans of hundreds of people disrupted after cancellations
Community organisations chartering UAE airlines for repatriating stranded Indians have reported cancellation of their flights after India’s Civil Aviation Ministry denied approvals, shattering dreams of hundreds to fly home.
Speaking to Gulf News yesterday, representatives of different community groups confirmed that the repatriation flights that they had chartered with UAE airlines had been cancelled since Friday.
They said the flights had received approvals from the respective state governments and the Indian missions from the UAE. However, the final layer of approval from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was getting denied.
Indian missions in the UAE told Gulf News that they had not received any official communication in this regard. However, a section of the Indian media has reported that India stopped allowing UAE airlines to operate additional repatriation flights, after UAE put curbs on carrying passengers to from India to the UAE on Indian airlines.
Though the reason is not immediately clear, the cancellation of some repatriation flights chartered with UAE airlines has toppled the travel plans of hundreds of stranded Indians.
Office bearers of the Tamil community group Quaide Millath Forum told Gulf News that they had to arrange accommodation for dozens of stranded Indians, who were to board an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah to Madurai on Friday night, after the next morning flight was cancelled.
“We had managed to prevent people from Dubai and Sharjah from coming to the airport as soon as we received information that the flight has been cancelled due to the approval issue. But more than 40 people had already come over very early from Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and we had to make arrangements for their accommodation,” said Abdul Rahman Rabbani of the group.
With India’s Civil Aviation Ministry denying approval for new charter flights by community organisations, the travel plans of hundreds of stranded Indians have been thrown into disarray.
Office bearers of the Tamil community group Quaide Millath Forum told Gulf News that they had to arrange accommodation for dozens of stranded Indians, who were to board an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah to Madurai on Friday night, after yesterday morning’s flight was cancelled.
He said those who got stranded included pregnant women, small children, aged patients and jobless workers, as well as those who came from Abu Dhabi.
“Since there is an issue with entering Abu Dhabi, they cannot go back today. So they have gone to the houses of relatives and friends,” said Rabbani.
Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) in Abu Dhabi said a flight it chartered with Etihad which was supposed to fly 178 passengers and five infants from Abu Dhabi to Kozhikode in Kerala yesterday was also denied permission.
“This was the 13th flight that we chartered with Etihad for our repatriation mission. We never had any issue earlier. We used to get DGCA permission within no time after submitting the approvals from the Kerala government and the Indian Embassy here,” said Shukoor Ali Kallungal, president of KMCC Abu Dhabi. “The issue is many have already vacated their flats to leave the country. Those people will now struggle for managing their accommodation until they can fly again,” he said.
Zubair Siddiqui, who was to catch a fly dubai charter flight from Abu Dhabi to Hyderabad on Friday, said he was extremely disappointed when officials from the Al Manar Islamic Centre informed him about the flight cancellation at the last minute.
Siddiqui, who worked with the procurement department of a landscaping company, had lost his job in April. He has been living with support from his friends and cousins since then.
According to sources, about 70 per cent of the charter services for Indian repatriation have been operated by UAE airlines.
In June, Gulf News had reported that more Indians stranded here were being flown home, thanks to the participation by UAE airlines in operating chartered services.