Two flights carrying 325 stranded Indians from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain landed at Kozhikode and Kochi airports on Friday.
Air India Express flight with 148 Indians from King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia landed at the Kozhikode International Airport at 8:03pm on Friday. The flight brought home 84 pregnant women and 22 children. Passengers included 138 persons from 13 Kerala districts and 10 from neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The second flight from Bahrain's capital Manama with 177 passengers reached Kochi airport at 11:32pm on Friday.
Four flights, 692 back home
Till Friday, four flights brought 692 persons back to Kerala after India launched the repatriation mission - dubbed Vande Bharat Mission- on Thursday in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
The first two flights from Abu Dhabi and Dubai - both in United Arab Emirates - brought 363 persons on Thursday.
The mission
Sixty-four flights will bring back 14,800 stranded Indians from 12 countries till May 13. Twenty four flights will be pressed into service to bring back persons from five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
An Air India aircraft departed the national capital's IGI Airport around 11:30pm Thursday to Singapore and returned to New Delhi with Indian nationals at 11:30am on Friday.
Around 2,000 people are expected to reach Kerala in the first five days on board 13 flights, official sources said.
More than 1,90,000 Indian nationals, who would have to pay a one-way ferry service charge, are expected to be brought back.
The international airports at Kannur, Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram will handle the arrivals.
Besides the four destinations in Kerala, the national carrier would be operating services to Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Tiruchirapalli.
Air India has also invited passengers, who qualify under the government's new international travel norms, to apply for passage from India to various destinations the airline will send its aircraft to conduct evacuation flights.
