KATHMANDU, AUGUST 24

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has published the schedule for the fifth phase of repatriation flights.

A meeting held today published a schedule for a total of 19 flights to evacuate Nepalis stranded in different countries. Prior to this, the COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC) had halted the fifth phase of repatriation flights that was scheduled from August 17 citing lack of preparation for hotel quarantine.

According to the ministry, Air Arabia will conduct one flight from Sarjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday while on Wednesday, Etihad Airways and Fly Dubai will conduct a flight each flight from Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE.

Similarly, on August 27 Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) will evacuate Nepalis from Riyadh of Saudi Arabia, Himalaya Airlines will repatriate people from Dammam which is also located in Saudi Arabia and Turkish Airlines will repatriate people from Turkey. Meanwhile, on August 28 both NAC and Himalaya Airlines will repatriate passengers from Malaysia while Qatar Airways will bring home passengers from Doha in Qatar.

Similarly, Silk Air will conduct a flight to bring back Nepalis from Australia while Korean Air will bring passengers from Korea on August 29. Meanwhile, NAC, Himalaya Airlines and Malindo Air have scheduled a flight each for August 30 to bring back Nepalis from Malaysia.

On August 31, NAC and Himalaya Airlines will repatriate Nepalis from Dubai and Abu Dhabi, respectively.

Likewise, NAC will bring home people from Doha and Kuwait while Himalaya Airlines will conduct a flight from Doha on September 1.

MoCTCA has stated that airlines will be allowed to only carry passengers who can furnish a negative PCR report. If any airline is caught carrying passengers without a PCR report then the airline company itself will have to pay for the passenger’s seven-day quarantine.

The ministry has, however, said that the scheduled flights might be halted if there is a lack of quarantine facilities in Kathmandu. Recently, the government had announced that it would be mandatory for passengers to stay in quarantine in Kathmandu.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on August 25, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.