The second repatriation flight for Australians stranded in India is now en-route to Darwin.
Flight QF112 took off from New Delhi’s international airport on-time at 8.05pm (0.35am Sunday AEST) and is expected to land landed in the Northern Territory today at 9.20am (9.50am AEST).
Passengers will spend two weeks at the Howard Springs quarantine facility, joining approximately 80 Australians who arrived on the first repatriation flight last weekend.
This means this morning’s flight will arrive full, with 165 passengers on board.
The first flight, which landed in Darwin last Saturday, arrived half-full after 72 passengers were turned away over test results – there were 48 people who tested positive for the virus and another 24 family members deemed close contacts.
In the end there were 80 Australians on board the flight, having paid $1500 for their seat plus $3000 for quarantine.
There are now 11,000 Australians trying to get out of India, which is still seeing over 4000 deaths a day and over 250,000 new cases daily amid their current COVID-19 crisis.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has added two more government facilitated-flights back to Australia, with South Australia and Western Australia both agreeing to take in one flight each in the next two weeks.
This means a total of eight repatriation flights will arrive into Australia from India.
Darwin is today accepting its second of three flights, while Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are all set to take in one flight each.
This content first appear on 9news