British Airways special flight to touch down at Kolkata airport after 11 years
Kolkata/IBNS: Eleven years after ceasing direct flight operations between Kolkata and London's Heathrow airport, a special evacuation flight of the United Kingdom (UK)'s flag carrier airline, British Airways, will touch down at Netaji Subhas Chandra International (NSCBI-CCU) airport here on next Sunday (Apr 19) to transit UK nationals stranded in West Bengal and its neighbouring states due to the nationwide Coronavirus lockdown, officials said.
According to officials at the British Deputy High Commission in Kolkata, the special British Airways flight, which will be operated from Kolkata to London via Delhi on Apr 19, will evacuate UK nationals stranded in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and North Eastern states of India.
Eleven years ago, in the wee hours of Mar 29 in 2009, bidding adieu to Kolkata, the last British Airways flight left the city international airport for London, after 80 years of operation.
Meanwhile, British Airways will run few more evacuation flights from few more Indian cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin, Goa, Hyderabad and Trivandrum.
"British Airways will operate special evacuation flights from Goa to London on Apr 14 and 16; from Goa to London via Mumbai on Apr 18; from Amritsar to London on Apr 17, 17 and 19; from Ahmedabad to London on Apr 13 and 15; from Hyderabad to London via Ahmedabad on Apr 17; from Chennai to London via Bengaluru on Apr 20; from Kolkata to London via Delhi on Apr 19; and from Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) to London via Kochi (Cochin) on Apr 15," a BA official said.
Stranded British nationals can get details about the evacuation process and book their return to the UK by clicking on this link: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/india/return-to-the-uk .
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.