NEW DELHI, 19 March 2003 — India’s two national airlines were gearing up yesterday to airlift at least 50,000 nationals from countries neighboring Iraq in the biggest civilian evacuation since the 1991 Gulf War, officials said here.
Air-India and domestic carrier Indian Airlines said they would redeploy passenger jets to evacuate a staggering 4,000 Indians every day should the looming US-led war on Iraq affect oil-rich neighbor Kuwait.
“And we think a war in Iraq will threaten Kuwait,” an Indian official said as the two carriers braced for wartime duties following the 48-hour deadline set by US President George W. Bush for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to leave his country.
The two airlines, however, asked for a three-day notice period to re-deploy at least nine aircraft which could conduct up to 11 round trips daily between India and Dammam in Saudi Arabia, Air-India spokesman Jyotindra Bhargav told AFP. “We plan to carry back sizable numbers in a very limited time,” said the official from Air-India, which during the Gulf War evacuated 111,000 Indians in 57 days in the largest civilian airlift seen anywhere since World War II.
Indian Airlines, which ferries 57,000 people daily to local cities and 10 overseas destinations, said it was readying two Airbus-300 and one Airbus-320 jets with a combined capacity of 641 seats for the evacuation.
“Our target is not Iraq as only 40 Indian families, accounting for 70 people, are there. But in Kuwait 315,000 Indians work and we expect up to 50,000 would like to escape the war,” said airlines spokesman Anup Srivastava. India, which issued an advisory on March 10 to its nationals to quit the Gulf, has taken into account the possibility that Kuwait’s airspace may be closed to civilian traffic during a war in adjoining Iraq.
“And so our point of operation would be Dammam, which is in eastern Saudi Arabia next to Bahrain and just a drive away from Kuwait and we would try to tackle any additional load,” said Srivastava.
“Dammam will be the hub of the joint operations for Air-India and Indian Airlines as it is easily accessible to other countries in the region,” the airline spokesman said.
The evacuated Indians would be flown to the western Indian city of Bombay and to Trivandrum and Cochin in the country’s south, he added. Air-India, which operates 90 weekly flights to the Gulf, said it planned to divert four of its European flights for the airlift provided Iranian airspace opened up to international civilian traffic in case of war in Iraq. “And if it does not open then we will go more southerly but that will increase flying time by an hour, which means higher fuel costs,” said Bhargava.
Air-India and Indian Airline plans to fly out the workers on a 20 percent discounted airfare, but sources said the Indian government may shoulder the entire cost of the airlift.
