Air India & AI Express operate 14 flights on Day 6 of Vande Bharat Mission amid lockdown

Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express operated a total of 14 flights on Tuesday to bring back Indian citizens under the Vande Bharat Mission and for travel of foreigners amid the COVID-19-triggered lockdown.

31 inbound, 34 outbound flights in last 5 days

As per data from Air India till 8 pm on Tuesday, New Delhi to San Francisco flight departed at 3:30 am with 227 passengers, Mumbai to London flight left at 6:30 am with 165 passengers, and Cochin to Singapore flight departed at 10:30 am with 29 passengers. The flight to New Delhi from Singapore departed at 6:05 am with 243 passengers, from Chicago, the flight to Mumbai lifted off at 9:55 am with 334 passengers, the flight to Srinagar from Dhaka took off at 10:30 am with 169 passengers while the one from Dammam in Saudi Arabia to Cochin took off at 3:15 pm with 168 passengers.

Dubai to Kannur took off at 3:30 pm with 177 passengers, Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai lifted off at 3:45 pm with 255 passengers, Manila to Delhi took off at 4 pm with 237 passengers, while Singapore to Bengaluru flight took off at 4:15 pm with 177 passengers. The London flight to Mumbai departed at 5:45 pm with 328 passengers, the one from Muscat to Chennai departed at 5:45 pm with 180 passengers, and the flight from Dubai to Mangalore took off at 6:40 pm with 177 passengers.

READ | Vande Bharat Mission: 118 people stranded in USA land in Hyderabad

In the last five days, from May 7 to May 11. Air India and AI express have operated 31 inbound flights which carried 6037 passengers and operated 34 outbound flights that carried 1329 foreign nationals. Under the Vande Bharat mission announced by India, the Air India group will operate 64 special repatriation flights to bring back around 14,800 Indians from 12 countries from May 7 to May 13.

READ | Phase 2 of Vande Bharat Mission to begin from May 16, 149 flights to be deployed: Sources

India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country till now. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended for the lockdown period.

READ | Vande Bharat Mission: 331 stranded Indians from UK reach Hyderabad

READ | Vande Bharat Mission: 288 people stranded in USA, UAE land in Hyderabad

(With ANI inputs)