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War evacuation plans ready: Shawnawaz >From Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS) Indian Airlines and Air-India are gearing up to evacuate some tens of thousands of Indians from the Middle East if a war breaks out in Iraq, Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said Saturday. "We are fully prepared to evacuate people in an emergency," Hussain told reporters. But he said the operation would not be as large as that in the 1990 Gulf War. Air-India brought a record 111,711 Indians from Amman in 1990 over a period of 59 days, the largest ever evacuation of civilians by an airline. The ministry of civil aviation has asked both the airlines to be prepared to deploy aircraft on special routes to evacuate Indians from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at a short notice of three days. "We have to reschedule our operations to the U.S. and Europe for the special flights. Our plans will be finalised soon," said an Air-India spokesperson. Flights to destinations such as Paris, New Jersey, Frankfurt and Tokyo may have to be cancelled or rescheduled. According to the civil aviation ministry, some 50,000 Indians would have to be airlifted from the region now. While Indian Airlines will carry about 2,000 passengers per day, Air-India will take about 1,500. There are about 1.4 million Indian workers in Saudi Arabia and some 300,000 in Kuwait. Only about 100 are said to be in Iraq, compared with 10,000 in 1990. Air-India plans to press into operation one Boeing B747-400, one B747-200 and two Airbus-310s. Indian Airlines will deploy five Airbus aircraft. The return flights will be operated from Mumbai to Dammam and will come via Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram on their way back. Operating an A-300 flight from Mumbai to Dammam and back is estimated to cost around Rs.6 million. Ministry officials said the evacuation operations could last about a week. --Indo-Asian News Service _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goanet.org/mailman/listinfo/goanet
