Spice Jet to operate special evacuation flight to Slovakia, Kiren Rijiju on-board
Mar 01, 2022
New Delhi [India], March 1 : A special evacuation flight will depart from New Delhi to Kosice, Slovakia today to bring back Indians stranded in Ukraine. Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju will be on-board the flight, travelling as a special envoy of the Indian Government to oversee the evacuation.
The SpiceJet flight is scheduled to depart at 3:30 PM from New Delhi and is scheduled to arrive in Kosice, Slovakia at 7:50 PM IST.
The airline will use its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for the special flight. The aircraft will fly directly to Kosice from Delhi and will return via a technical halt at Kutaisi in Georgia. The aircraft is scheduled to return by 7:40 AM on March 3.
This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday deputed four Union Ministers to neighbouring countries of Ukraine to coordinate evacuations of stranded Indians amid ongoing Russian military operations in Ukraine.
Other ministers deputed to manage evacuations include Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia in Romania and Molodova, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri in Hungary and Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport Gen (Retd) VK Singh in Poland.
This is the second evacuation flight being operated by SpiceJet under 'operation Ganga' after a special flight left yesterday night for Budapest, Hungary from New Delhi.
The airline is in discussion with the concerned authorities to operate more evacuation flights in the coming days.
The Union government has launched 'Operation Ganga' to bring back stranded students and Indian citizens from the conflict-torn Ukraine. Special flights are being operated by Air India and other airlines as part of the 'Operation Ganga' mission.
Earlier on Monday, the Ministry of External Affairs said that India has evacuated over 8,000 nationals since the initial advisories were issued by the country.
