India announces more repatriation flights from Middle East

Our Correspondent

With the high demand from Indian citizens in the Middle East to fly home in the wake of the COVID-19 disruptions in careers and life, the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation has released a full list of repatriation flights for August from the Middle East region to airports across India.

From August 1 to 29, Air India will ferry Indians on 22 flights from airports in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. Another 23 flights flown by Air India throughout August will repatriate Indian citizens from Bahrain, Doha and Muscat airports.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation also released a partial list of ‘Vande Bharat’ Phase V flights by the state low-cost carrier Air India Express. These are scheduled from August 1 to 15. They include four flights daily out of Dubai from August 1 to 5 and another 37 flights out of Dubai from August 6 to 15. The low cost airline will take off for India 79 times from Abu Dhabi and Sharjah during this 15-day period.

Meanwhile, for Oman, the Ministry has released a list of Air India and Air India Express flights that will fly from Muscat to the Indian cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Trichy, Bangalore, Kannur, Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvanathapuram. The Air India flights will be operated from August 7-12 and the AI Express flights from August 6-31. AI Express will operate three flights to Kochi (2) and Thiruvanathapuram (1) in this window. Passengers can access more details from the  website Ministry of External Affairs .
Phase V will also include flights from Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia as well as Australia, Canada, Egypt, Philippines, Malaysia, China, France, the United Kindgom and the United States. India’s mission to bring back its citizens from all over the world is called Vande Bharat. Air India and its low cost subsidiary have brought back 259,764 Indians on 1,391 inbound flights in the first four phases of VBM so far. Its Phase IV will be completed at the end of July.