KIA gears up to receive first evacuation flight from London

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The Kempegowda International Airport geared up for the arrival of the first evacuation flight from London early Monday morning. The Air India Boeing 777 was scheduled to land at 3 am, with an estimated 200 passengers.

All the passengers are to be screened on arrival and shifted for mandatory quarantine for 14 days. The first flight was to reach Bengaluru via Delhi. In all, about 800 people would be brought back to Karnataka by three Air India flights over the next few days.

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On Friday, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar had visited the airport and inspected the upgraded screening facilities there. The screening will be conducted in two stages. The government has already made arrangements to quarantine the passengers at hotels, hostels and school buildings.

After flying in from London, the Air India flight AI 1803 was scheduled to depart Delhi at 12.15 am and arrive at KIA in less than three hours.

A second Air India evacuation flight (AI 1379) is expected to touch down from Singapore at 7.45 pm on May 13. Another flight from San Francisco is also scheduled to arrive in the city within the next three to four days.

“The Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) is working with the state and airport health authorities to ensure that all passengers coming into KIA over the next few days follow processes mandated by the government departments,” a BIAL spokesperson said.

Vande Bharat mission

Under the Vande Bharat evacuation mission, an AI 381 was the first flight to land in India. The flight with 234 passengers had landed in New Delhi from Singapore on Friday, and hours later, a second flight touched down in Srinagar from Dhaka. A third flight arrived in Kozhikode (Kerala) from Riyadh.

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The fourth rescue flight was also to Kerala. Carrying 152 passengers, the flight IX 474 landed in Kochi. Early Saturday morning, another flight from the UAE landed in Chennai. However, an Air India flight to Doha was reportedly denied permission to land there and had to be rescheduled to Tuesday.