Mumbai: No-frills carrier IndiGo said Wednesday it has flown a little over 75,000 passengers with majority of them between India and Middle-east through 487 flights till Tuesday as part of its charter operations and flights under ‘Vande Bharat Mission’. ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ is a central government initiative for repatriation of Indian nationals stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These international flights were operated from Middle Eastern countries including the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and from other Asian nations such as Maldives, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, IndiGo said in a release.
IndiGo has operated 436 international passenger charter flights and 51 international repatriation flights under the Vande Bharat Mission from July 3 till July 14, transporting 75,428 passengers, the airline said. Of these, 65,865 passengers were on the flights between India and the Middle East, it added.
The Gurugram-based carrier in the release said it also managed a sizeable traffic of seafarers to and from destinations including Doha, Colombo, Hong Kong and Singapore among others. It added that it had repatriated 9,334 citizens on-board ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ flights.
“We have successfully operated close to 500 international flights in almost 1.5 month, including passenger charters and repatriation flights under ‘Vande Bharat Mission’. We are grateful to the government for trusting us to operate these flights and including us in the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’,” said Ronojoy Dutta, CEO.