India has begun Phase 4 of its massive repatriation exercise Vande Bharat Mission on Friday, with over 900 flights scheduled. Private airlines will play a major role with IndiGo and GoAir operating 498 flights. These numbers are likely to rise. This phase will be the biggest until now with the focus on only 17 nations.
Air India will operate 114 flights, Air India Express will operate 300 flights and private players such as IndiGo will be operating 457 flights and GoAir will operate 41 flights.
In this 4th phase of VBM, Air India will focus almost exclusively on longhaul destinations, leaving shorter routes for Air India Express and private carriers. Long-haul destinations include flights to Australia, UK, USA, Ukraine, Canada and Kenya. The Middle East, which has seen the highest demand, as well as Asia, will be flown by Air India Express, IndiGo and GoAir. These flights will operate between July 3 and 15.
Until now, private airlines had only operated few flights out of the thousands given to Air India. However, it seems this is set to change. As per the Civil Aviation Ministry, private airlines will be at the centre of the repatriation flights this time.
Before this phase began, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, “We began VBM to bring back about 190K stranded citizens. But when numbers grew manifold we ramped up the mission. Since May 6, nearly 445K people have returned on VBM and chartered flights(170K) including foreign charters (275K). More are expected to return in Phase 4.”
