BENGALURU: Passengers on board the first repatriation flight from London to Bengaluru were relieved to have touched down on Monday, and expressed confidence they were safe from the COVID-19 virus here. This is the first passenger flight landing at KIA since March 24, and had 326 passengers on board, including three infants, apart from a 12-member crew.
Aditya Shetty, an M.Sc student in International Business Management, reached Bengaluru with four of his friends. “I am very happy. I was trying to return to India since March, due to the terrible scenario in the UK. The kind of precautions people seem to be taking here are lacking there. India feels safe,” he said. He will be quarantined at a hotel for the next 14 days, and is fine with it too.
Pawan, a software engineer, had just one word for the UK situation. “It’s horrible. No one is following the lockdown and you feel really unsafe. So I decided to return with my wife and kid.” Pawan said the booking process was smooth. Priyanka Dasari, into her seventh month of pregnancy, was allowed to travel because of her condition, but her husband was not.
“The flight was heavily overbooked. My parents are in Andhra Pradesh and I am employed in Bengaluru. I have to manage everything on my own here, so I have mixed feelings about reaching India,” she added. Chirag MG came here to do a one-year course and his thesis is still pending. “Great care was taken to ensure social distance as soon as we reached Bengaluru and all checks are being done,” he said.
Live blogger
Bengalurean Meghana (twitter handle @GoingMeghana) tweeted her entire journey from London to Bengaluru -- from the packaged food and water, lack of protective gear for a few rows, and other trivia. “Slightly anti-climatic as no one clapped this time...” she tweeted.
Pregnant woman rushed to hospital
A 27-year old woman from Bengaluru in the third month of pregnancy, who landed at Kempegowda International Airport on the first repatriation flight from London on Monday morning, was rushed to KC General Hospital at Malleswaram in an ambulance after she started experiencing severe pain.
A source in the hospital said the woman experienced spotting (light vaginal bleeding during pregnancy). Both mother and baby are fine now and recuperating in hospital.