India looking at Lebanon airlift

New Delhi: With 1000 of its nationals lining up to be moved out of Lebanon in the four naval ships that entered Lebanese waters today, India is now looking at airlifting its citizens from there via Cyprus. There are some 12,000 Indian nationals in Lebanon.
The government has asked Air-India to be on stand-by and ready to take-off as early as Friday to evacuate Indian nationals stranded in Lebanon from Larnaca airport in Cyprus. Indian naval ships would bring these people from Lebanon to Cyprus from where they would be airlifted. A final decision on the number of aircraft and flights would be taken after a meeting on Thursday. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has agreed to relax the Flight and Duty Time Limitation for these operations on the condition that any airline crew exceeding the prescribed norms would be compensated with a double rest period afterwards.
20/07/06 Indian Express

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