The first Air India flights, arranged by the Indian government have transported 469 Indians locked in war-ridden Ukrain. They were received by union ministers. While the first flight reached Mumbai last night, passengers were received by union minister Piyush Goyal.
The second flight reached Delhi airport today early morning and passangers were received by civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Sindia. The flights started from Romania, on the border of Ukraine.
The first flight, Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane touched down the runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at 7.50 pm. Piyush Goyal receiving them expressed his happiness to see the smiles on the faces of Indians safely evacuated from Ukraine. The flight departed from Bucharest at 1:55 pm IST.
He asked the returning passengers to speak to their friends still in Ukraine and reassure them not to worry. He assured them that the government is working in a mission mode to ensure safety of our citizens.
More evacuation flights are being operated and the second flight is likely to land in Delhi in the wee hours of Sunday, he added.A large number of relatives of the passengers were also present at the airport.
“We are very happy to bring our students back home. The students were filled with joy once we landed here in Mumbai. Thanks to the Government of India for giving us this opportunity,” an Air India flight attendant said.
Earlier, the Embassy of India in Hungary said that Budapest to send the students to India by an Air India flight. being taken. The embassy tweeted, “The first batch of Indian students entered Hungary from Ukraine via Jahoni border naka, going to Budapest today to return to India by Air India flight.”
Significantly, India on Friday managed to set up camp offices in the cities of Lviv and Chernivtsi in western Ukraine to relocate Indians to Hungary, Romania and Poland. India has deployed teams of officers to the Jahoni border post in Hungary, the Krakowiec as well as the Scheini-Medica land border naka in Poland, Wisne Nemeke in the Slovak Republic and the ucheva border naka in Romania to coordinate the evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine. has done.
India is trying to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine through its land borders with Hungary, Poland, Slovakia as the Ukrainian government has closed the country’s airspace after Russian military strikes.
The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since the morning of February 24 and therefore, the evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.
Indian nationals who reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road have been taken to Bucharest by Indian government officials so that they can be evacuated in the Air India flights.
Around 16,000 Indians, mainly students, were stranded in Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said on February 24.
