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In one of the largest Covid 19-related repatriations from West Asia, the Saudi Arabia-based Expertise Contracting Company has started operating 12 chartered flights to repatriate over 2,000 of its employees to their various home countries in the Indian subcontinent.
Six of the flights have already reached Chennai and Hyderabad on Friday (June 5) and Ahmedabad and Delhi on June 6 and Mangalore and Chennai on June 7. The operations will conclude on June 11, with altogether nine flights to India.
The flights, chartered from Gulf Air and being operated from the city of Dammam, also include the ones covering three other neighbouring countries. KS Shaikh, Director, Expertise Contracting Company, said the 20-year-old Expertise group, one of the largest conglomerates in the GCC operating in petrochemical and heavy equipment sectors, has got more than 10,000 employees and their family members in the Gulf, mainly in Jubail. Of these, the company has chosen over 2,000 employees for the Covid-related repatriations considering various emergencies.
According to him, a few of the family members of Expertise employees were pregnant or in need of medical care. “Many of the employees above 50 years of age were also worried about their own health prospects during the Covid threat and we thought it was our duty to ensure the safe arrival of them to their home countries, which made us plan and operate these chartered flights,” he said.
The remaining flights are on June 8 (Delhi), June 10 (Kochi) and June 11 (Mangaluru). This has been the biggest and largest repatriation mission undertaken by any private company in the entire West Asia, which includes the cost of the air travel and the quarantine expenses of the passengers and airline crew in the respective countries, all borne by Expertise Contracting Company.
The company is ready to carry out more such chartered flights as and when there are requirements and will be flying them free back to their workplaces once the pandemic is subdued and conditions are safe, he added.
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