India revokes landing rights to private jets flying expats home
REPATRIATION CHARTER FLIGHTS OPERATED BY UAE AIRLINES ALSO STOPPED
India has revoked landing permits issued to UAEbased private jets, used by Indian expats stuck back home to return, days after stopping UAE airlines from chartering repatriation flights to India, Gulf News has learnt.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday stopped issuing permits and cancelled those approved, industry sources said yesterday.
“In fact, all landing permits that DGCA issued up to July 10 have been cancelled,” said Ahmed Shajeer, head of chartered division, Hadid International Services. His company provides permits and flight support services to companies providing private jet services.
DGCA warning
He said the DGCA also informed aviation companies that any UAE private jet that departs with a cancelled permit to India would be confiscated.
In a statement to Gulf News, DC Aviation of Al-Futtaim said: “As a result of the DGCA suspension of flights into India, our Challenger 604 aircraft, which was scheduled to land in Dubai has been affected.” It is learnt The flight was supposed to bring 11 people from Mumbai to Dubai yesterday.
Desperate travellers
Shajeer said that many residents who have returned on private jets included those who are afraid of losing their jobs.
“They took the risk of spending so much money to fly on private jets because they had got emails from their companies saying they had to report on a specific date or else they would be terminated. One customer sold his child’s gold jewellery to fly back,” he said.
Shajeer added that permissions issued to flights scheduled from July 11 have not been affected, hoping that the standoff would be resolved by then. On July 4, Gulf News first reported that community organisations chartering UAE airlines to repatriate stranded Indians faced cancellation of their flights after India’s Civil Aviation Ministry denied approvals.
Repatriation flights
Representatives of different community groups said repatriation flights that they had chartered with UAE airlines stood cancelled since Friday.
They said the flights had received approvals from state governments and Indian missions in the UAE. However, the final layer of approval from the DGCA was being denied.