Kerala airports get ready to receive expats from Gulf, other countries

Thiruvananthapuram: As India begins its biggest evacuation exercise to bring back its citizens stranded in the Gulf and various countries due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the three airports in Kerala are all set to receive around 2,700 expatriates in the first five days, beginning Thursday.

Three naval ships, which have also joined in the evacuation process, left for Maldives and UAE on Tuesday to bring back Indian citizens. The first of the three flights from the Gulf will take off from Abu Dhabi on Thursday with 200 passengers and touch down at the Kochi International airport at 9.45 pm.

Jishnu, a passenger from Abu Dhabi, who got his ticket, was elated that he would be able to return to his home state.

“I am very happy to have got the ticket. I was informed yesterday that I could travel”, he told a television channel.