Flight from Kuala Lumpur with 117 evacuees land in Hyderabad

Seventh evacuation flight of Air India from Kuala Lumpur with 117 passengers landed at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here on Thursday night.

AI 1385 from Kuala Lumpur landed at 10.12 p.m., an airport spokesman said.

This was the third flight to land in Hyderabad during the day and overall seventh flight operated to the city under Vande Bharat mission, aimed at evacuation of stranded Ind from various countries.

Two flights with 312 evacuees from the Philippines and the United States landed early Thursday.

The flight from Manila via Delhi brought 149 passengers to the city while another flight from Washington via Delhi carried 163 passengers.

The passengers from all the flights were serviced through the fully sanitized International Arrivals of the Main Passenger Terminal.

After the completion of immigration and other formalities, the passengers were transported to designated locations in the city for mandatory 14-day quarantine period as per the rules framed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Telangana government in coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs, various central agencies and the airport authorities made special arrangements to handle the arrivals as per the Standard operating Protocol issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

All passengers and aircraft crew were brought out from the aircraft in a batch of 20-25. Each passenger was screened by the thermal cameras positioned at the aerobridge exit by Airport Health officials prior to immigration formalities.

Every baggage was thoroughly sanitized by the disinfection tunnel integrated to the baggage belt.

Glass shields were provided at each manned immigration counter to avoid any personal contact between the passengers and immigration officers.

The Hyderabad Airport has so far handled seven evacuation flights from the US, the UK, Kuwait, the UAE, Philippines and Malaysia repatriating over 1,000 Indian citizens stranded off-shore.

The airport has also handled 12 international departures evacuation flights serving close to 1000 foreign nationals who were repatriated by various special relief flights to the UK, the UAE, the US, Kenya and Germany.

( With inputs from IANS )