Air India to operate flights exclusively for stranded passengers

Air India on Thursday announced that it will operate domestic flights exclusively to ferry passengers evacuated under the Vande Bharat mission to their onward destinations.

Passengers arriving and departing at hub airports will be ferried on these special flights that will connect destinations such as Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Vishakhapatnam, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi.

As of Wednesday. As many as 2,525 of NRIs stranded in India have taken off to their adopted homes onboard 55 outbound flights.

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“These flights are not meant for any domestic passengers,” Air India, which is operating evacuation flights under the Vande Bharat mission, said adding that the flight bookings for the second phase could be done on its website.

Air India has already evacuated more than 11,000 Indians since May 7, when the Vande Bharat mission was launched.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday had announced 30 feeder flights under Vande Bharat Phase-II to take passengers to places such as Gaya, Varanasi, Vishakhapatnam

In Phase-I of the mission, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express are operating 64 flights to evacuate 14,800 Indian nationals. In the Phase-II, the national air carrier plans to evacuate 30,000 Indians on 149 flights.

Phase II of Vande Bharat from 16-22 May will also include flights from Armenia, Australia, Belarus, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand and Ukraine.

Apart from aerial evacuation, the Indian Navy has deployed two of its ships to repatriate Indians from abroad. Since March 7, these two ships have repatriated approximately 1,000 Indians from Maldives as part of Vande Bharat mission.