Indian and international carriers announced new repatriation flights as well as restoration of scheduled flights to evacuate tens of thousands of passengers stranded across the Middle East. | Representative Image
Mumbai: Indian and international carriers announced new repatriation flights as well as restoration of scheduled flights to evacuate tens of thousands of passengers stranded across the Middle East. The move comes as regional airspace remains severely restricted following a dramatic escalation in geopolitical tensions involving the US, Israel, and Iran.
Government’s Calibrated Rescue Plan
As of Wednesday, the Indian government has coordinated a “calibrated rescue plan” involving 58 special flights to ferry citizens back from hubs including Dubai, Fujairah, Jeddah, and Muscat. While most of the operations to and from the Middle Eastern airports remain suspended until the midnight of Thursday, Indian airlines have announced special flights from these hubs to different destinations in India including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kochi and Ahmedabad.
Air India announced to commence scheduled operations from Jeddah on Thursday with flight no. AI-2255 from Delhi to Jeddah and AI-2256 from Jeddah to Delhi and two sets of flights on Mumbai-Jeddah-Mumbai routes. The airline will also operate an additional service AI-909D/996D on Mumbai-Dubai-Delhi route with a widebody Boeing 777 aircraft with a larger capacity to fly back more stranded passengers.
Air India Express Operations
Air India Express will operate one set of to and fro scheduled flights each from Muscat to Delhi and Mumbai from March 5 to 7. Additionally, it has also announced to operate special flights to and from UAE’s Ras Al Khaimah connecting Delhi, Kochi and Mumbai during these three days.
Akasa Air will operate to and fro flights on Mumbai-Jeddah and Bengaluru-Jeddah routes on Thursday while its operations to and from Doha, Kuwait and Riyadh will continue to be suspended. SpiceJet will operate a flight from Fujairah to Mumbai on Thursday. IndiGo will also be operating repatriation flights to the UAE and is restoring its scheduled flights to Athens, Muscat, Jeddah and Madinah.
International Carriers Resume Limited Operations
International carriers like Emirates, Fly Dubai and Etihad have also started operating a limited flight schedule from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Indian cities. Emirates will operate three flights from Dubai to Mumbai, two each for Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru as well as one each for Chennai, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. Emirates issued an advisory for its customers to not reach the airport unless notified directly by the airlines or hold a confirmed ticket for the limited flights.
Air India also announced to offer complimentary rescheduling or full refund option to passengers for confirmed bookings made on or before February 28 on flights to and from the Middle East, the UK and Europe to travel up to March 10. As the Middle East crisis had also hit the airline’s operations to the West, Air India announced that it will deploy additional capacity to Toronto, Frankfurt and Paris. It will deploy three additional flights between Delhi and Toronto from March 5 to 11 as well as three flights on Delhi-Frankfurt and one flight on Delhi-Paris route from March 7 to 10.
