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| Edited By: DNA Web Team |Source: PTI |Updated: Feb 26, 2022, 09:03 AM IST
An Air India plane departed from the Mumbai airport on Saturday morning for Romanian capital Bucharest to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine due to the Russian military offensive.
The flight, AI1943, took off from the Mumbai airport around 3:40 am and is expected to land at the Bucharest airport around 10 am (Indian Standard Time), senior government officials said.
Indian nationals who have reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road are being taken to Bucharest by Indian government officials so that they can be evacuated in the Air India flight, they noted.
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Air India will operate more flights on Saturday to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since the morning of February 24 and therefore, the evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.
Around 20,000 Indians, mainly students, are currently stranded in Ukraine, the officials said.
Before the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had conducted one flight to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back to India.
It had planned to operate two more flights on February 24 and February 26 but it could not do so as the Russian offensive began on February 24 and the Ukrainian airspace was consequently shut down.
Air India said on Twitter on Friday night that it will be operating flights on B787 aircraft from Delhi and Mumbai to Bucharest and Budapest on Saturday as special government charter flights to fly back stranded Indian citizens.
