First Czechs return home; repatriation strategy adjusted hour by hour
The first repatriation flight from the Middle East brought back close to 200 Czech nationals late on Monday night. For hundreds of others waiting to be picked up, conditions on the ground and in the air are changing by the hour.
A Smartwings plane landed safely at Prague’s international airport late on Monday night bringing back the first batch of tourists who were holidaying in the Middle East with one of the country’s travel agencies. They boarded in Musckat, Oman, after being transported there by busses organized by their travel agency. Thousands of others are waiting their turn amid growing uncertainty and continued bombing in the region.
At a press briefing in Prague on Monday, Foreign Minister Petr Macinka announced last minute changes and attempted to clarify the situation both for those stranded in the Middle East and their families back home.
“Originally, two Czech government aircraft were scheduled to depart on Monday to pick up Czech citizens at Amman airport in Jordan and in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to collect tourists arriving overland from Israel. However, Jordan closed its airspace on Monday and the people traveling overland from Israel needed more time to get to Sharm el-Sheikh. So as not to lose precious time, we decided to fly to Oman instead of Egypt, heading to Muscat airport, where Czech citizens arriving overland from Dubai are beginning to gather,” the minister explained.
“Once the group travelling overland from Israel to Egypt arrives they will be picked up by a military CASA aircraft and flown home. After the smaller Airbus returns to Prague from Jordan, it will fly to Egypt for the rest of the group,” the foreign minister said. If the capacity of the two smaller aircraft proves insufficient, the ministry will dispatch a second military CASA plane to Sharm el-Sheikh.
The foreign minister appealed to all Czech citizens in the Middle East to register with the ministry’s travel data base Drozd and follow the recommendations made. He said that the carrier Smartwings, used by the majority of Czech travel agencies was organizing around six flights a day to bring back clients and would continue to do so for as long as is needed.
According to Macinka, travel agencies are organizing bus transport from Dubai to Muscat, and taking good care of their clients. Government repatriation flights –he said – are for those who did not travel with a tour operator.
There are around 6,000 registered Czech nationals across the region with the majority — roughly two-thirds — in Dubai or elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates.
The minister urged those citizens who are in high-risk areas and were not with a package tour to stay put and not try to travel on their own but to adhere to the advice of the local authorities. Although Dubai Airport is closed for the time being, with its air defense Dubai is still safer than other destinations, he said.
The minister also assured travelers who had problems reaching an operator on the ministry’s crisis line that an operator would get back to them.
“In the course of Sunday operators took over 700 emergency calls. They are working around the clock and I want to assure you that even if you do not get through operators will call you back as soon as the situation allows. No calls are overlooked.”
The minister once again stressed the importance of registering with the Drozd travel database, which helps the authorities to assist their citizens in the event of a crisis.
