Kolkata: A flight from the West Asia war zone arrived in Kolkata on Thursday, the first since the last flight from the Gulf took off from the city more than 113 hours ago on Feb 28. Another flight is scheduled to operate on Saturday.FlyDubai flight FZ 461, operated with a Boeing 737 Max-8 aircraft, landed in Kolkata at 2.40 am, more than two hours behind schedule. However, the delay did not bother the 130 passengers on board, who were relieved to be back in Kolkata and away from the threat of drones and bombs.The return flight took off at 3.59 am instead of the scheduled departure at 1.25 am and had only 55 passengers on board. The aircraft, with a 2-class cabin, has 166 seats: 10 in business class and the rest in economy.On board the flight that arrived in Kolkata was Kidderpore resident Naushad Ali. The 35-year-old businessman had flown to Dubai on Feb 27 and was scheduled to return the following day when the flight was cancelled owing to the outbreak of the war. “I usually go to Dubai for seven-eight days a month. This trip, too, was a normal one till the war broke out. Initially, my family — parents, wife, daughter and siblings — were worried. But I assured them the situation in Dubai was almost normal. But I am lucky to be among the first to return to the city,” he told TOI. “FlyDubai operated the flight to transport passengers stranded in Dubai. It said it will operate the next scheduled flight on Saturday. However, that will be subject to the situation in the region,” an airport official said.While the airport gets around four-six flights a day from the region, there had been no flight from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Doha since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Counterstrikes by Iran in Israel, along with other countries in the Gulf that have US bases, led to countries in the region shutting down their airspace.“Prior to the FlyDubai flight in the early hours of Thursday, the last flight from the region was Emirates flight EK 571 that took off from Kolkata at 9.35 am on Feb 28,” the official said.Since the war erupted, international travel from Kolkata has taken a hit. Thousands who were slated to travel to Europe or the US were stranded in Kolkata, as a bulk of the west-bound traffic is carried by Gulf airlines Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, FlyDubai, and Air Arabia. With the airspaces in the Gulf shut and airlines having to make a detour, fares shot up by five times, making travel unviable for many.“Though Kolkata has far fewer international flights than the other major Indian airports, war in West Asia hit international traffic figures. However, domestic traffic remains strong,” another airport official said.The 32 flights that operate to Kolkata from the Gulf in a week carry around 12,500 passengers per week, or nearly over 50,000 passengers to and fro each month.
