Bengaluru, May 22: Evacuation planes from Male in Maldives and Doha in Qatar landed in Bengaluru with returnees from Karnataka after they were stranded for two months due to suspension of international flights since March 23 and the extended lockdown, an official said on Friday.
"An Air-India flight (#0266) with 152 passengers from Male and its subsidiary Express flight (IX-0822) with 177 returnees and 5 infants from Doha landed here safely at 6.50 pm. and 9.05 pm respectively," an airline official told media persons in Bengaluru.
Both the flights are first from their respective countries to Bengaluru, bringing in returnees to the southern state in the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission, being carried out to evacuate Indians stranded the world over.
"As per the standard operating procedure and guidelines of the state health department, all the passengers were screened with thermal device and tested to ensure they were asymptomatic before leaving the airport," a nodal officer said.
The returnees were given a spare mask to wear all the time and a sanitiser to wash their hands.
"The luggage of all passengers was screened and disinfected before handing over to them after they completed formalities such as filling the self-declaration form and downloading of the Quarantine App for contact tracing later,” said the official.
The passengers were ferried from the airport in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.
The flights were the 6th and 7th flights to Karnataka, of the national carrier and its Express arm, which are operating the service to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas.
Five flights have flown about 650 returnees till date from May 18-21 under the mission's second phase to Bengaluru and Mangaluru on the west coast. The passengers have been brought from Dubai in the UAE, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Muscat in Oman, Dammam in Saudi Arabia and San Francisco in the US.
The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 12 days till June 3 from 9-10 more destinations the world over.
In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.
Comments
PFI / SDPI only future hopes. for \United India\""
1 clarification,
PFI, SDPI are emerged to defend the communalism of all these RSS, VHP, BJP non-secular groups.
SDPI are definitely a secular minded political party. Getting more popularity amongst Dalits.
As Monu said, there is no comparision of crimes between
I wonder ......some time even secular minded people to show as secular use the comparison of Organizations such as PFI and SDPI to Fascist RSS , VHP and Bajrangdal.......there is no similarity between these ideologies............except organizing power and discipline .....
PFI never raped and killed innocent Indian citizens
PFI never indulged in anti anti national activities
PFI never took law into hands
PFI never wanted an Islamic state in INDIA
PFI always hoisted Indian national flag in all its programs
....etc etc etc
this is so sad to that second time Mr.Mattu used PFI and SDPI as shield to show secular face
We need such honest and fare mind politician, because of these great human being still humanity is alive in this communal society. May God bless you sir!!
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