Air India's Repatriation Flight Denied Landing Permission In Doha Likely To Fly On Tuesday

In some good news for the 181 passengers who were scheduled to fly from Doha to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala on Sunday on a special Air India Express plane, their re-scheduled flight is likely to operate on Tuesday from the Qatari capital.

AFP

The flight which was originally scheduled for Sunday was canceled last minute after it was denied permission for landing in Doha. The flight was to leave from the Karipur Airport in Kozhikode around 1.30 pm to airlift 181 stranded Indians but was not given landing permission from the Interior Ministry of Qatar following which it has been cancelled.

"It has been rescheduled for Tuesday. We are in regular contact with the Indian embassy," Thiruvananthapuram District Collector K Gopalakrishnan said, adding, they had not received details on why the landing permission was not given.

While no official explanation has been given for the denial of landing permission, the Indian Embassy in Qatar said the flight was cancelled for technical reasons, without elaborating further.

Unfortunately IX-374 scheduled for today from Doha to Thiruvananthapuram was cancelled for technical reasons. Being rescheduled for 12 May 2020. Passengers already booked for the flight to reconfirm tomorrow. Those with exit permit issues will not be cleared for boarding.

¡ª India in Qatar (@IndEmbDoha) May 10, 2020

BCCL/ FILE

However, according to reports by several Malayalam media houses, Qatar had given permission for the Air India flight on the assumption that it was an evacuation mission and not a paid repatriation.

The government had already come under heavy criticism for making the stranded Indian citizens pay for their flight tickets, including for those who have lost their jobs due to the lockdown.

But the last-minute cancellation caught the 181 passengers, including 15 pregnant women and children, who had already reached the Doha airport by surprise. According to Revathy, a passenger booked on the cancelled flight, it was disappointing they could not take the flight after the long wait. Only after relatives of some passengers from Kerala called them and enquired, Doha airport officials told them that the flight had been cancelled, she told a television channel.

AFP

In anticipation of the arrival of the flight, the airport and district authorities were conducted third mock drill on Sunday morning and completed all preparations to receive the passengers from Qatar, returning home after being stranded there due to the coronavirus lockdown.

India has started the repatriation of its citizens stranded in various countries, especially expatriates from Kerala in Gulf nations, since Friday and around 1,500 people have already arrived in the state by air and sea route.

The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights in the first week from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals.