In a major breakthrough, the government has allowed ship and crew managers to send and bring back Indian seafarers on chartered flights to facilitate staff swap on board ships at foreign ports.
The approval, which came late in the evening on Saturday, will help thousands of Indian seafarers sign off or join ships at overseas ports, an exercise that was halted in February in the wake of the pandemic. Thus, crew have been working beyond their contract tenures.
A 189-seater SpiceJet plane took off from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai on Sunday this evening for Doha, carrying 63 seafarers of six companies, including Maersk Tankers, Mediterranean Shipping Company, BW Group, Synergy Marine, Nautilus Shipping and MMSI. From Doha, they will fly out to different destinations to join ships.
