The first two flights carrying stranded Keralites from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) landed at Kochi and Kozhikode on Thursday night.
This was part of India's massive repatriation exercise to bring back its citizens stuck in different parts of the world - dubbed Vande Bharat Mission- in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
The first flight from Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, landed at Cochin International Airport at 10:13pm. It had 181 passengers on board.
The second flight from Dubai with 182 passengers landed at Kozhikode International Airport at 10:32pm.
The passengers, barring pregnant women and children and elders, will be shifted to various quarantine centres across the state after conducting COVID-19 PCR tests at the airport.
The Kochi-bound Air India Express flight IX452 brought home 4 infants, 49 pregnant women, 12 senior citizens and three people including identical twin brothers Jackson and Benson Andrews who have been stranded in Dubai Airport for 50 days.
Eight KSRTC buses and 40 taxi cabs have been arranged to transport the passengers to various quarantine centres across the state from Kochi.
Twenty-five Ernakulam residents will be shifted to SCMS College hostel in Kalamassery.
Sixty Thrissur natives will be transported to the quarantine centres in Thrissur and Guruvayur by three buses. One Kasaragod resident will be quarantined at Ernakulam.
The 182 passengers arrived at Kozhikode Airport include 19 pregnant women, seven children below 10 years, 51 people persons who need emergency medical care and six persons above 70 years.
State Transport Buses will ferry the passengers to hospitals, isolation centres and COVID care centres.
The first special flight from Bahrain to Kerala is slated to depart from Manama on Friday evening. The flight will arrive at the Cochin International Airport at 10:50pm with around 200 passengers.
Air India had rescheduled its Riyadh-Kozhikode flight to Friday earlier.
Around 15,000 Indians stranded across the globe will be brought back in the evacuation exercise dubbed Vande Bharat Mission in one week. Twenty four flights will be pressed into service to bring back persons from five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Around 2,000 people are expected to reach Kerala in the first five days on board 13 flights, official sources said adding arrangements, including accommodation for quarantine and thermal screening at airports, have been made.
The international airports at Kannur, Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram will handle the arrivals, a large number of them from the Gulf region.
Besides the four destinations in Kerala, the national carrier would be operating services to airports in Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Tiruchirapalli.
Quarantine facilities
Minister for Higher Education K T Jaleel said al arrangements to receive passengers from Dubai have been completed. "All the passengers will be taken to quarantine centres after their arrival," he said reporters at the Karipur airport.
Speaking to reporters at Kochi airport, Ernakulam district collector S Suhas said 500 rooms have been earmarked to quarantine those returning from abroad. "We will shift all the passengers to these facilities," he said.
Malappuram tops the list
As many as 105 persons from Malappuram district have arrived in the two flights on Thursday.
Here is the district-wise break-up of passengers arrived Thursday:
Thrissur: 73
Kozhikode: 70
Ernaulam: 25
Palakkad: 23
Alappuzha: 15
Wayanad: 15
Kottayam: 14
Pathanamthitta: 8
Kannur: 6
Kasaragod: 6
Thiruvananthapuram: 1
