Air India and Air India Express are operating the flights.
India will launch the Vande Bharat Mission later today, with Air India flights ferrying out passengers stranded in India. On the return journey, these flights will bring back Indians, stuck overseas.
The Mission is claimed to be the biggest repatriation exercise ever.
Air India subsidiary, Air India Express, will also operate flights, mainly to the Middle-East.
The first Air India flight will take off from Delhi at 11.15 pm, on May 7, to Singapore. The next day, on May 8, flights will leave for Dhaka, London, Riyadh and San Francisco. These will be operated from Mumbai and Delhi.
Air India has charted out a 8-day plan. Moneycontrol has seen a copy of it.
Similarly, Air India Express has a seven-day plan. Its first flights will take off on the Cochin-Abu Dhabi-Cochin and Kozhikode-Dubai-Kozhikode routes.
About 1.9 lakh Indians have registered, all over the world, to get back home. At the same time, there are thousands in the country, who are unable to travel out. These are NRIs who had come visiting but got stuck due to the lockdown.
On May 5, the Ministry of Home Affairs had released a list of SOPs that have to be followed by those looking to travel on these flights.
Air India is said to have opened its counters for booking for these flights. The heavy traffic saw its website crashing for a bit, as tweeted by many on the social media platform.First Anniversary Offer: Subscribe to Moneycontrol PRO’s annual plan for ₹1/- per day for the first year and claim exclusive benefits worth ₹20,000. Coupon code: PRO365
