The government is looking to operate around 64 flights to bring back around 15,000 Indians stranded abroad. The Indian Navy is also likely to be used for the proposed evacuation.

This operation will begin on May 7 in a phased manner. It is likely that the flights will connect to 10 states, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana,  Delhi and Maharashtra. The aircraft are likely to depart empty from India and return to various cities in these states. Medical screening of passengers will be done before they are allowed to board the flights and only asymptomatic Indians will be allowed to travel.

The flights are likely to be spread over seven days, with about 2,300 passengers being brought back on the first day, around 2,100 on day five and 2,500 on day six. On the fourth and seventh and last day of the proposed evacuation, about 1,800 people each will be brought back.

Among the routes that are being looked at include Manila-Chennai, Chicago-Delhi-Hyderabad, New York-Delhi-Hyderabad, Kuwait-Kozhikode and San Francisco-Delhi-Bengaluru.

It was not immediately clear whether Air India alone will operate these flights or some private airlines will also be involved in the evacuation. Senior officials of two private sector airlines indicated to BusinessLine that they had not been contacted till late on Monday evening to operate any flights.

At the moment all domestic and international flights are banned till May 3. The government had imposed a ban on commercial flight operations on March 25.

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