Hardeep Singh Puri hails civil aviation's COVID warriors for diligently performing duties

Union Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri on Sunday hailed the ‘Corona Warriors’ of the civil aviation sector saying that they have been “diligently performing their duties despite great personal risks to ensure that we can continue to reach out to our people in their hour of need.” Calling the civil aviation essential staff members “relentless and undaunted,” Puri informed that an Air India Flight AI1369 had urgently departed from Singapore with 500 BiPAPs, 250 oxygen concentrator, and other medical supplies for Mumbai, to tackle India’s upfront fight against the more transmissible COVID-19 variant surge, that sabotages health systems. India’s civil aviation minister also commended the repatriation efforts of the Air India crew, stating that in such dire times, the crew has been able to lift more than 80.2 lakh stranded citizens from other countries back to their homeland under India’s 'Vande Bharat Mission'. 

'Strengthening efforts' against pandemic

“India’s private carriers are strengthening our efforts against the pandemic,” Puri said, as he stressed that India is fighting novel coronavirus “together” with resilience. In positive news, Puri continued that the civil aircraft Spice Jet had airlifted 800 oxygen concentrators from Hong Kong to India. He shared a photograph of SpiceXpress’s B737 freighter aircraft which was at the time, lifting the consignment to fly it back to India. The aircraft was bound for Delhi via Kolkata and landed Sunday 7 pm. “SpiceJet is firmly committed to the service of our fellow Indians in these most trying and difficult times,” SpiceJet’s Chairman and Managing Director, Ajay Singh said. He added, in a Twitter post, We're working to bring more than 10,000 more oxygen concentrators from across the world in the next few weeks.”

“Along with SpiceHealth, we have airlifted 800 oxygen concentrators from Hong Kong for emergency use in India and we are looking at bringing more than 10,000 oxygen concentrators in the coming days from across the globe,” said SpiceJet’s Chairman and Managing Director, Ajay Singh. 

Meanwhile, the civil aviation’s Airport Fire staff members were seen hard at work reducing the length of an oxygen tanker at the airport with equipment. Staff was seen cutting down rear mudguard attachment to fit the length of at least two empty oxygen tankers to be airlifted to Jamnagar, which would later be refilled with Oxygen supply to be transported to Madhya Pradesh to fight the oxygen crisis at COVID-19 dedicated healthcare facilities.