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Watch: Indian students from crisis-hit Ukraine say returning home feels good
Air India operated the first of its three flights from Ukraine on Tuesday night. Students said though the situation in Ukraine seems peaceful, they feel relieved after landing in India.
Around 240 Indians reached India from Ukraine on Air India's Boeing 787 aircraft. The flight AI 1946 took off from Boryspil International Airport in Kyiv at around 6pm (IST) and landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at around 11.40pm on Tuesday.
Many of these Indians are students pursuing medical education in Ukraine. Recounting the ground situation, the students said it is peaceful but there is a lot of panic. Students have followed the advisory of the Embassy which asked the students to leave the country at the earliest.
"Nothing much is happening there. It seems peaceful. But the way things are going, what people are saying, we don't know what will happen in the coming days," Shivam Chaudhary, a student, said to ANI. Another student told the news agency that his parents are now much relieved that he has left Ukraine amid the crisis building up.
Air India, which has recently been handed over to the Tata Group, took part in India's evacuation mission following the outbreak of Covid-19. With the Russia-Ukraine tension escalating, flights became scarce making it difficult for students to follow the Embassy advisory of leaving the country. On February 19, Air India announced that it would operate three flights between India and Ukraine on February 22,24 and 26. The first of these flights has now brought 240 Indians back.
The civil aviation ministry removed the existing cap on the number of flights that can fly between India and Ukraine and asked carriers to look at the possibility of operating flights from Ukraine.
A total of four flights are scheduled to depart between February 25 and March 6. Scheduled flights of Air Arabia, Fly Dubai, Qatar Airways, etc are continuing to operate their routine flights from Ukraine to India.
