Air India flight bringing Indians from Ukraine to land in Mumbai today evening
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New Delhi: The Air India flight from Romania, bringing Indians evacuated from Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, will land in Mumbai at 4 pm, PTI reported.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal will receive the evacuees at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
The aircraft, AI1943, took off from the Mumbai airport around 3.40 AM (Indian Standard Time) on Saturday and landed at the Bucharest airport around 10.45 AM (Indian Standard Time), senior government officials said.
Indian nationals, who reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road, have been taken to Bucharest by the Indian government officials so that they can be evacuated in the Air India flight, they noted.
AI1943, which is being operated on Boeing 787 aircraft, can carry 256 passengers at a time, they said.
Air India will operate more flights on Saturday to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since the morning of February 24 and therefore, the evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.
Before the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had flown one plane to Ukraine capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back to India.
New Delhi had plans to operate two more flights on February 24 and February 26 but the Ukrainian airspace was shut down following the Russian offensive.
The Indian embassy in Ukraine on Friday said it is working to establish evacuation routes from Romania and Hungary.
"At present, teams are getting in place at the following check points: Chop-Zahony Hungarian border near Uzhhorod, Porubne-Siret Romanian border near Chernivtsi," it said.
Indian nationals, especially students, living closest to these border checkpoints are advised to depart in an organised manner in coordination with teams from the Ministry of External Affairs to actualise this option, the embassy said.
In a fresh advisory today, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine has asked the Indian citizens not to move to border posts without coordinating with its officials.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up a dedicated 24x7 control room to provide assistance and information to Indians in Ukraine.