3 flights with Indians to land in city today

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) airport geared up on Saturday for the first repatriation flight, under government’s Vande Bharat mission,

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) airport geared up on Saturday for the first repatriation flight, under government’s Vande Bharat mission, to land in the early hours of Sunday.

HT Image

Total three flights, with over 800 stranded Indians, will land in the city during the day.

As per airport officials, the Air India flight with 326 passengers, which took off from London at 4.30pm (IST) on Saturday, is scheduled to land at 1.30am on Sunday.

Flights from Singapore (with 243 passengers) and Manila in Philippines (241 passengers) will also land in the city during the day. The Singapore flight is expected to land at 12.30pm and the one from Manila around 11pm.

The Government of India has charged the stranded passengers for flying them back. While passengers on US flights are being charged Rs 1 lakh, passengers flying from the UK have to pay Rs 50,000. Tickets for passengers flying from Singapore is around Rs 20,000 and those wanting to fly from Dhaka have to shell around Rs 12,000 per air ticket.

A Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson said that the airport will receive around 2,350 Indians in the span of seven days, starting Sunday.

“The airport is all set to support the initiative and has put together standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure the safety of passengers. The repatriation operations will see CSMIA catering to ten flights and six transit flight in the course of seven days welcoming stranded Indian nationals from the UK, USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Philippine, commencing with three flights on May 10,”

MIAL has dedicated two aero-bridges for repatriation flights.

Screening of passengers before entering the immigration area will be done by the airport health organization. MIAL said that the passengers will need to maintain a physical distance of minimum of two metres through distinctive markings at the airport and will be required to wear face masks and hand gloves during the entire course of their journey.

The airport has set up 30 immigration counters for ensuring quickest clearance for the arriving passengers.

The MIAL spokesperson added that the airport is making special arrangements for the stranded nationals by arranging food and beverage facilities in the arriving hall. The airport will also have a limited number of forex and sim card outlets.

All the arriving passengers will be escorted by the security agency- Central industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel until they are handed over to the state authorities.

The spokesperson stated, “Provisions have been made in the eventuality that any symptomatic passenger is identified at the airport, he or she would be immediately isolated and moved to the separate area earmarked for the purpose. Designated airport ambulances will be on standby to shift the symptomatic passengers to designated isolation centres.”

The state government has made arrangements for asymptomatic passengers from Mumbai to be moved to identified quarantine facilities like hotels (depending on their preference), while those from outside Mumbai will be transported to their respective district headquarters for institutional quarantine. A helpdesk at the airport has been set up to guide the passengers.

CSMIA has handled total repatriation of over 8,500 passengers with 51 evacuation flights since March 25 to May 9.

Of the total repatriation flights facilitated by CSMIA, Atlanta in the US saw over 2,000 passengers landing in total eight flights operated by Delta Air Lines, highest to any destination from Mumbai during the lockdown period. London was the other destination with six flights operated by Air India and two flights each by Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.