New Delhi. An Air India aircraft took off from Mumbai airport on Saturday morning for Romanian capital Bucharest to bring home Indians stranded in Ukraine due to Russian aggression.
Senior government officials said flight number AI1943 took off from Mumbai airport at around 3:40 am and is expected to reach Bucharest airport at around 10 am IST. He said that Indian nationals who have reached Ukraine-Romania border by road will be taken by Indian government officials to Bucharest so that they can be brought home through Air India flights.
Air India will operate more flights on Saturday to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to bring home Indian nationals stranded in Ukraine. On Thursday, Ukrainian authorities closed their country’s airspace for the operation of passenger planes, so these flights are being operated from Bucharest and Budapest to bring Indians home. Officials say around 20,000 Indians, mostly students, are currently stranded in Ukraine.
Before the closure of Ukrainian airspace, Air India on 22 February sent a plane to the Ukrainian capital Kiev in which 240 people were brought back to India. It had planned to operate two more flights on 24 and 26 February but this could not be done due to Russia launching an offensive on 24 February and the subsequent closure of Ukrainian airspace.
Air India tweeted on Friday night that it will operate B787 aircraft from Delhi and Mumbai to Bucharest and Budapest on Saturday. The Indian embassy in Ukraine on Friday said it is working on demarcating routes to and from Romania and Hungary.
“Currently, teams of officers are arriving at the Chop-Jahoni Hungarian border near Uzhorod, the Porbne-Siret Romanian border posts near Chernivtsi,” the embassy said. The embassy said that Indian nationals living close to these border check posts, especially students, are advised to proceed in an orderly manner in coordination with the teams of the Ministry of External Affairs.
It said that once these routes are operational, Indian citizens will be advised to proceed towards border check posts to travel by themselves. The embassy has advised Indians to keep their passports, cash (primarily in dollars), other essentials and COVID vaccination certificates with them at border check posts. The embassy has said, “Take out the print (on paper) of the Indian flag and affix them on vehicles and buses during the journey.”
The distance between Ukraine’s capital Kiev and Romania’s border is about 600 km and it takes eight and a half to 11 hours to cover this distance by road. Bucharest is about 500 kilometers from the Romanian border check post and it takes about seven to nine hours to travel by road. At the same time, the distance between Kiev and the Hungarian border is about 820 km and it takes 12-13 hours to cover it by road.