A GULF AIR flight brought back stranded Indians from Kerala last night in what has been claimed as the first such flight in the Gulf.
More than 90 per cent of the 168 passengers aboard GF7061 from Thriuvananthapuram were those at risk of losing their jobs, or whose visas are about to expire.
The flight landed at Bahrain International Airport at 7.25pm, carrying men and women who have valid Bahrain residence permits and couldn’t return before India suspended commercial flights in March due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Worried
Three of the passengers were children on visit visas, whose parents are Bahrain residents.
The first-of-its-kind operation was spearheaded by the Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam (BKS), the largest expat association in the country, in co-operation with Bahrain’s national carrier and officials from both the countries.
BKS president P V Radhakrishna Pillai told the GDN that the feat was the “need of the hour” and was a blessing for thousands of people, including those worried about losing their jobs and children who were separated from their parents.
“Ninety per cent of the people are those who were afraid of losing their jobs, and most of them were from the low-income group or small and medium business owners,” he said.
“There are also 19 children whose parents are here while they were stranded in India.”
This is the first known flight from the Gulf to bring back Indian expatriates, while all the other flights have repatriated expatriates as part of India’s Vande Bharat Mission.
The next three scheduled flights are: GF7263 from Kozhikode arriving today at 5.45pm and GF7713 from Kochi arriving at 6.45pm on Thursday.
The GDN earlier reported that BKS was the first to operate chartered flights to India in June, flying home around 3,320 Indians on 19 flights to Kerala and Hyderabad.
Around 28,000 Indians had registered with the Indian Embassy to return home – almost 70pc having lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
Mr Pillai said a number of people in Bahrain and India made the “reverse repatriation” flight possible. “This is the debut initiative of India’s new ambassador Piyush Srivastava who helped us get the necessary approvals from Delhi,” he said.
Mr Srivastava arrived in Bahrain on July 28 and was to assume office after the mandatory 10-day quarantine as part of Bahrain’s Covid-19 protocol.
Mr Pillai also thanked American Mission Hospital chief executive Dr George Cheriyan, Indian MPs N K Premachandran and Dr Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedhaaran, officials from Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry, Gulf Air and Civil Aviation Authority and their counterparts in New Delhi and the Non-Resident Keralite Association.
Mr Pillai revealed that BKS was considering operating flights from other states as well.
Under the agreement, Gulf Air will fly empty aircraft to Kerala to bring back Indians with valid residence permits, with each passenger being charged BD140.
Apparently, a number of people in Kerala had difficulty reaching the airport amidst the floods that has ravaged the state.
On Friday, an Air India Express plane, carrying returning Indians from Dubai, skidded off the runway and broke into two while landing at Kozhikode Calicut International Airport amid heavy rain, killing 18 people including both pilots and four children.
raji@gdn.com.bh
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