US, UAE citizens evacuated on special flights from RGIA airport

Citizens of the USA and UAE were evacuated in two special passenger relief flights that took off from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Shamshabad here on Wednesday.

Air India operated a flight to repatriate a few US citizens from the city. A flight that arrived from Delhi landed RGIA at 5.50 p.m. It departed with 100 US nationals to Delhi at 7.23 p.m. As per the itinerary, the passengers of the flight were to be further airlifted by the United Airlines from Delhi to US.

Another special passenger relief flight operated by the Air Arabia, arrived from Sharjah via Cochin to RGIA to evacuate a few UAE citizens stranded in the city. The Air Arabia flight G9-426 landed from Cochin at the airport at 7.35 p.m. and



departed with 72 UAE nationals at 9.01 p.m. to Sharjah.

All these passengers of both the flights were serviced through the fully-sanitised Interim International Departures Terminal (IIDT) of the airport, which has been kept ready for evacuation operations. In coordination with the US consulate, Hyderabad, the UAE Consulate and the Telangana government, the US and UAE citizens started to arrive at the airport from 3 p.m.

Special screening and safety measures were in place during the flights’ handling to protect against the COVID-19 threat including thermal screening, mandatory social distancing enforced through special queuing arrangements at all passenger processing points.