MUSCAT: Al Hind Travels and Tours has organised a charter flight from south Indian state of Kerala to Oman hours before the travel ban comes into force on April 24.
Al Hind Travels that has over 120 branches across the world including in India chartered a flight through Salam Air to bring the passengers from Calicut to Muscat on Saturday morning.
“We received hundreds of phone calls from frantic passengers who wished to return before the travel ban and that’s when we decided to do a charter,” said Reena Abdulrahman, Chief Operating Officer of Al Hind Travel and Tours in GCC and Africa region.
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The Supreme Committee imposed a travel ban on passengers coming from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh due to rise in coronavirus cases. The ban comes into force on April 24 for an indefinite period. “It was not easy to do this charter flight as or required a lot of approvals,” Reena said.
According to Reena, 185 passengers including five infants arrived in Muscat from Calicut on Saturday.
Al Hind is also planning to do special flights from Oman to India in the coming weeks. “Even though there are no restrictions for airlines to fly from Oman to these three banned countries, the discretion is on the particular airline to operate because what you need to understand is that these flights are returning back to Oman with empty seats. So there are chances of flights being cancelled due to less demand so in these situations charter flights will be a solution for passengers,” Reena added.
