Two Air India Express (AIE) flights carrying 362 Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs) from Kuwait and Muscat landed at the Cochin international airport here on Saturday at 9.45 p.m. and 10 p.m. respectively. Another AIE special flight from Doha will be reaching the airport early Sunday morning.
They were being evacuated after they were stranded in these countries following the worldwide lockdown in air traffic to combat COVID-19.
There were 181 passengers, including four children, on the AIE (IX 0442) Muscat-Kochi flight.
They included 23 from Ernakulam, 26 from Thrissur, 20 each from Palakkad and Pathanamthitta, 16 from Kannur, 13 each from Kollam and Kottayam, 12 each from Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha, two each from Idukki and Kasaragod, 15 from Kozhikode, and nine from Malappuram.
The AIE flight from Kuwait (IX 0396) had 181 passengers, including four children.
The flight from Doha (IX 0476 ), scheduled to land at 1.40 a.m. on Sunday, will be carrying 183 passengers. Reports indicated that the 541 Malayalis being evacuated from the Gulf countries will be reaching Kochi without preliminary screening for COVID-19. It will be a major challenge for the State government, which has left nothing to chance by arranging quarantine for expatriates with symptoms in government facilities and home quarantine for those without the symptoms
From Bahrain
A group of 181 evacuees from Bahrain landed in Kochi on Friday night. The passengers comprised 87 men. Officials said 25 of the 94 women passengers were pregnant. The flight also had 28 children below 10 years of age. Of the 28 natives of Ernakulam, who arrived from Bahrain, 15 were sent to corona care centres and 13 in home quarantine. The flight had 41 natives of Thrissur, 19 of Palakkad, 22 of Kottayam, four of Kannur, ten of Alappuzha, and 17 of Kollam.
