Vishnu Som
blog updated: February 24, 2022 5:07 pm IST
It’s not often that any airline flies a 256-seat jetliner commercially with just eight passengers on board.
But this is different.
The Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner I am onboard is on its way to Kyiv, Ukraine. The goal: to bring back hundreds of Indian nationals, primarily students, who are stranded in a country where an invasion by Russia can happen at any moment.
The Air India executive at the check-in counter looked at me incredulously this morning when I arrived at the airport at 4 am for my 7:30 am flight out to Borsipol Airport in the Ukrainian capital.
“You’re going where?” she asked.
“Kyiv,” I tell her. She sees my ticket, her computer, my ticket again and then calls her supervisor, perhaps unaware that the airline actually has passengers heading in the wrong direction.
“Sir, do you really have a visa to go there?” the supervisor asks. “Yes, ma’am, here it is.”
The boarding pass for the Air India flight going to Ukraine
Finally checked in, the executive hands me my boarding pass and says, “Sir, your boarding pass for wherever it is that you are going.”
Ominous. I smile back at her and move to immigration where the officer looks at my visa, my face, my visa and then asks, again incredulously, “Aap wahan kyon ja rahen hain?”
“Media main hoon. Reporting karni hain.”
He calls his supervisor. The two of them talk amongst themselves and then he says, “Filhaal, hum aapko rok nahin sakte. Koi order nahin hain. Aap ja sakte hain.”
He stamps my passport and looks at me with a puzzled expression, probably wondering what sort of weirdo heads to a place from where hundreds are escaping from.
At the boarding gate, the Air India crew show up for the flight. Lots of them.
“How many passengers do you have onboard today?” I ask as boarding is announced.
“Nine passengers, sir,” I am told. “Actually, just 8,” says a distinguished gentleman who walks past me. I look up. The wings on his shirt and stripes on his shoulder patches indicate that he is a senior commander.
“Why are you traveling to Kiev?” he asks me.
“Same reason as you, captain. Work.”
“Stay safe,” he says politely as the few other passengers also start boarding.
On board, I am told there are as many as 28 crew members – four pilots (two would fly the return leg), eight cabin crew for the Delhi-Kyiv leg, and 12 to serve passengers on the way back. The other crew members are flight engineers. Air India doesn’t usually fly to Ukraine – ground support could be a problem. The engineers are meant to handle any issues on the Dreamliner if they do emerge.
“You can sit anywhere you like, sir,” I am told and am plied with endless cups of coffee as the cabin crew members come around and have a chat.
“What’s it looking like sir,” I am asked. “It’s not looking good,” I tell them.
“How long will you be there?” I am asked. “Let’s see” is the only answer I have at the moment.
On board, I meet three young students, the youngest is just 19, my son’s age. She is headed to college like the other two students with her.
“I want to become a doctor,” says 21-year-old Sonam Sangwan. She has been enrolled at Vinnytsia National Medical College. “I am a little bit worried but if I don’t go, I will miss my year, so it’s best that we go, enrol ourselves and come back.”
The other young women say much the same. Education comes first, war or no war. But Sonam and her friends will have to wait. As will I.
The Air India aircraft that turned back to Delhi while on its way to Ukraine
Shortly after crossing into Iranian airspace, between Keran and and Bandar Abbas, the captain makes an announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your commander from the flight deck. I regret to inform you that the company has been in touch and we have been advised to return to Delhi because the airspace over our destination has now been closed. We will land in Delhi in about two hours.”
It had always been touch and go. Just a short while before take-off, the latest news alerts out of Ukraine had indicated that airspace over eastern Ukraine had been shut down.
“How will you go now?” my colleague Sanket Upadhyay messaged. “I have boarded and we should be pushing back soon,” I had told him.
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The Ukraine airspace shutdown is an enormous crisis. Besides cutting off a major European nation, it now means that evacuating Indian nationals will become much tougher and may require the involvement of the Indian Air Force. But with close to 25,000 Indians residing in Ukraine, including as many as 20,000 students, the number of flights that the government is able to mount will be a huge concern. Getting permissions to operate flights will be a headache that the Indian embassy will need to address. Any flights coming out in this situation will need to operate briefly within airspace where air forces and surface-to-air missile systems are on hair-trigger alert.
Air India, now owned by Tata group, remains India’s go-to airline in times like this. This Dreamliner service was one among several flights organised to bring back Indian nationals from Ukraine. But getting a seat on the Kyiv-Delhi route was getting expensive. A one-way ticket on flights scheduled later this month cost upwards of ₹ 1 lakh. That’s more than what many students who want to get home can afford.
Air India’s next scheduled flights into Ukraine, under the Vande Bharat Mission, have now been cancelled. The Indian embassy is working out alternate options. There is no clarity when Indian nationals will be able to return to safety.
As we landed in Delhi, I saw one of the young students I had spoken to. She had a tear running down her cheek.
(Vishnu Som is Executive Editor, NDTV 24×7)