Chartered flights will evacuate several Indian families from Bahrain this week, if necessary permissions come through, a popular Indian multinational travel agency has confirmed.
Ease My Trip is working closely with Indian carrier Spice Jet to organise flights to Mumbai and Delhi. Presently, the organisers are in the process of securing the necessary permissions, considering flight operations at Bahrain International Airport remain temporarily suspended due to Bahraini airspace closure, according to the latest update by Bahrain Airport Company, dated yesterday.
As part of the same initiative, chartered flights from Doha to Mumbai and Delhi are also being organised. Presently, Qatar airways has resumed limited operations with some relief flights running to and from Doha. The agency circulated online forms to understand and secure genuine travel demand from the Indian communities in Bahrain and Qatar and received more than 500 positive responses in just 30 minutes.
“People are quite anxious and I have personally received many calls from families looking to fly out,” Ease My Trip co-founder Rikant Pitti told the GDN.
“The majority of the interest has been received from Bahrain.
“I am hopeful that we will be able to operate the flights from Doha on March 10 or 11 and, hopefully, from Bahrain on March 11 or 12, if permission allows,” he added.
Mr Pitti revealed that he had received more than 20 calls within 30 minutes of the form being sent out, from Indian families that are desperate to fly back home due to the current uncertain situation.
Bahrain is home to 332,000 Indians, the largest expatriate group.
“People have been calling me saying they are willing to pay any price. As a chartered flight it will be slightly more expensive than a regular flight, however, the additional 10 per cent cost is only to cover the financial risk involved in running a charter, like last minute cancellations,” he explained, adding that the extra amount will be refunded in case the flight is fully booked.
Since the Iranian air strikes on Gulf States on February 28, Ease My Trip was the first to start flight operations from Fujairah on March 3, following which there have been more than 100 chartered and scheduled flights over the last seven days.
For now, the agency plans to focus on just Mumbai and Delhi – two of the main transit hubs for domestic flights in India.
“Our main priority is to get people to India. There are domestic flights operating from these places every two hours or so for those who want to travel further,” Mr Pitti added.
So far, there have been no official evacuations for Indian expatriates from the kingdom.
However, thousands of expatriates have exited Bahrain through the King Fahd Causeway, which continues to remain operational.
The GDN previously reported that Gulf Air – Bahrain’s national carrier – repatriated more than 400 transit passengers after it activated contingency measures to support passengers affected by the temporary closure of airspaces with accommodation, meals and alternate travel arrangements.
Since then, Gulf Air flights remain temporarily suspended as closure of Bahrain airspace continues. Services will resume once Bahrain Civil Aviation Authority confirms safe reopening.
melissa@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))