NEW DELHI: "We have to fly our compatriots back home to safety.” This decision by Air India on Sunday saw its Delhi-Kabul flight hover for over an hour in the dangerous Afghan airspace till the runway at the destination airport was finally made available for it to land. An Emirates Boeing 777 from Dubai was also holding at 28,000 feet near Kabul around the same time and it headed back to the UAE without landing in Kabul.
While AI was told an aircraft was disabled on the runway was causing ATC clearance delay, US troops were reportedly at that time securing Kabul airport to somehow keep it secure for evacuation flights for some days. AI 243 finally landed in Kabul after 2 hours and 13 minutes at 1.33 pm (local time Kabul) with 40 passengers on board. An event-free flight takes just under an hour. The 162-seater A320, which was fully booked on the return flight to Delhi, returned to Delhi on Sunday night with the 129 passengers who could make it to the airport of the besieged Afghan capital.
Passengers in Kabul are finding it difficult to reach the airport due to roadblocks being set up by the Taliban.
Sources in AI, which is the only scheduled commercial Indian carrier that currently flies to Afghanistan with a daily on Delhi-Kabul-Delhi sector, said: “We plan to operate a flight to Kabul on Monday at 8.50 am, depending on the ground situation there. The aircraft will bring as many people as possible to Delhi. We have 2-3 employees based in Kabul and will evacuate them Monday. The rest of the work is done by outsourced agencies locally.”
Through AI, the government is trying to evacuate Indians from Afghanistan using the airline’s fleet of both narrow and wide-body aircraft — that include a few flights that were sent but were unable to land due to security situations.
After Monday as and when AI operates flights to Afghanistan, it will fly a small team of commercial and security staffers from India — like it has been doing in other evacuation flights in the past — for passenger handling in Kabul the return journey.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has “advised” Indian carriers to “continuously monitor the situation in Afghanistan while planning flights” and keep flight crew aware of the same. Afghanistan lies on the overflying path of almost all flights between north India and the west, including the UAE. The DGCA has also asked the airline to “relook at their enroute alternates, in case of any diversion while overflying the Afghanistan airspace.”
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association, the union of AI pilots, had last Tuesday volunteered to fly to Afghanistan to evacuate Indians stranded there. “(we) are ready to go beyond the call of duty to evacuate (fellow) Indians.. extend complete support and cooperation to evacuate (Indians) from Afghanistan," ICPA had written to aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia last Tuesday.
"There was real danger in operating to Kabul on Sunday under the current circumstances. But AI has flown to war zones and dangerous places in the past also to evacuate Indians. Sunday's flight was special, as that was our way of saying Jai Hind on Independence Day -- by risking our lives for our compatriots," said a senior pilot.
