MANGALURU: Timely intervention from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) helped a woman and her six-month-old child board a Mangaluru flight from Kuwait on Saturday evening, which they had almost missed over some confusion regarding Covid protocol.
Aditi Sudesh Nayak and her son Shivansh reached the Kuwait International Airport at 4 pm on Saturday for their 5 pm Air India Express flight. But the airport staff refused to issue the boarding pass for Shivansh for not having a negative RTPCR report. Adithi and her husband, who had come to see them off, were in panic over the development as the hospital staff, where she got her RTPCR report, had told her that kids below two years of age don’t require it for air travel.
The airport insisted that the kid must have the Covid report and gave them 20 minutes to arrange it. After all pleading went in vain, the couple contacted their relative Mohandas Kamath, an engineer in Kuwait, who took up the issue with Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Shobha Karandlaje.
The minister got in touch with the MEA officials and ensured that the kid faceed no problems in boarding the flight. “It was nothing short of a miracle. All this happened within a matter of 15 minutes,” said Kamath. He said that when he spoke to Karandlaje, she was not sure about it, but promised to give it a shot. “But within 5 minutes, she gave a call that everything is clear and the kid can board the flight,” said Kamath.
Adithi, who reached Mangaluru on Saturday late night, said that she and her husband were deeply worried when the airport officials refused to help them. “I was begging them and was short of falling at their feet. After MEA officials contacted them, they came and took us to the flight,” she said.