Operation Rahat: Air India sought to pull out as many Indians as possible from Yemen

NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is probing if Air India's highly applauded rescue flights from Yemen carried more passengers back home than aircraft capacity.

Earlier this month, AI had operated flights for 'Operation Rahat' wherein 182-seater Airbus A-321s were deployed for flying from India to Djibouti in Africa.From there, the aircraft would fly to Yemen's war-torn capital Sanaa to evacuate Indians and bring them back to India after a refuelling stop in Djibouti.

On April 9, the last day of Operation Rahat, AI operated three A-321s to Sanaa and car ried 610 people out of the city -while the planes' combined capacity was 546.

"DGCA joint DG Lalit Gupta has asked for all papers of Operation Rahat to see how many people were carried in the aircraft and if the number of passengers was more than the seating capacity," said a source.

"He's examining all Operation Rahat flights in general and April 9 flights in particular. On Monday, Gupta called a captain who operated one of the three flights on April 9. Other pilots have been called on Tuesday."

An AI official said they were following orders from the government of India and its representatives on Operation Rahat flights. "The idea was to pull out as many Indians as possible out of war zone Yemen," said the source. "There was a mad scramble to be on these flights to India from Sanaa. AI also carried numerous foreigners to India and they flew to their native countries from Delhi or Mumbai later on."

Even the Sanaa airport has been bombed and a damaged portion of the runway has been filled with cement to somehow make planes fly from there. Nationals of many other countries are stuck in Yemen, but few countries and airlines have shown the courage India, and Air India, did in coming to the rescue of its citizens.