Karnataka: NRI hotelier pips Saudi based Kudla businessmen in bringing staff home first

MANGALURU: Even as two Mangalurean businessmen in Saudi Arabia created a buzz with their decision to fly 167 stranded Kannadigas home, a UAE based NRI has completed formalities to fly in the first charter flight through SpiceJet to Mangaluru International Airport on June 1. This will be the first international charter flight to touch base with MIA apart from the Vande Bharat Mission repatriation flights that ministry of civil aviation operated through national carrier – Air India.
As per the flight details that SpiceJet has furnished to authorities at MIA, the charter flight will depart from Ras Al Khaimah for MIA at 9.30am UAE time and reach at 1.20pm on June 1. Spokesperson for SpiceJet, Gurugram based low-cost airline while confirming the flight from one of the seven emirates that makes up UAE told STOI that it is against airline’s policy to share charter details. “The flight will have 177 passengers travelling on SG9608,” the spokesperson said.
A news report in Khaleej Times identified the NRI as Praveen Shetty, chairman of the Fortune Group of Hotels and president of the Karnataka non-Resident Indian Forum (KNRI). Shetty has decided to repatriate 105 staff members of the hotel group, who have been placed on paid leave as three out of seven Fortune Group of hotels in UAE, are not operating at the moment. The NRI hotelier has donated one hotel branch as quarantine facility to the UAE authorities, the report stated.
The returning staff are residents of Mangaluru, Udupi, Kasaragod and Kundapura. A few staff from other hotel groups are travelling on this flight as well. Staff from other states in India are departing on the Vande Bharat Mission flights, the newspaper quoted Shetty, adding presently he was sending 60 per cent of his hotel staff back home to India on paid leave. Shetty said he has not cancelled visas of any of his staff and will bring them back to the UAE once the pandemic completely subsides.
Rahul Shinde, probationary IAS officer, in-charge of Vande Bharat Mission flights said Dakshina Kannada district administration has made arrangements to transport 130 of the passengers to Udupi to an institutional quarantine facility there and remaining 47 to a hotel near MIA. “A call on taking swabs of passengers at MIA or at place where they will be quarantined will be taken in consultation with DC,” the officer said adding MIA authorities have extended all cooperation.