Emigration clearance affecting flights from Kerala: Managers

Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 6 (UNI) The Airline Managers in Kerala has said the delay in issuing emigration clearance for travelling abroad has caused a drop in number of passengers on flights from the three airports in the state to the Gulf and West Asia.

Most of the Airlines, including the national carriers Air India and Indian experienced a decline in passengers on the Kerala to Gulf flights to the tune of 40 per cent, which was quite alarming, a meeting of the AirLines managers here said.

The present imbroglio was with regard to the difficulty in obtaining emigration clearance for travelling abroad, especially in the case of those travelling to the Gulf and West Asia for employment, a release said here today.

It said with the peak season round the corner, if the issue of emigration clearance was not resolved immediately, all the Airlines were bound to operate their flights with a drop in passengers.

The meeting noted that thousands of job seekers in the Gulf with Employment Visas were unsuccessful in obtaining emigration clearance due to the stringent rules. It was also noted that visas in the case of many of these job seekers had expired and it was doubtful if their employers would send them fresh visas.

The present stalemate, apart from causing untold hardship to passengers had also affected the functioning of the Travel Agencies and the Travel Trade as a whole, the release added.

The meeting was attended by Assistant General Manager of Air India, Thiruvananthapuram, H A Munaff, Mr M A Altaf of Oman Air, Mr Jayaprakash Nair of Qatar Airways, Mr Renji Thomas of Gulf Air, Mr Pradeep Suvarna and Mr Anoop Kumar of Emirates, Ms Asha Subramaniam of Sri Lankan Airlines, Mr D Murali of Indian, Mr Oommen Mathew of Kuwait Airways and Mr Anil George of Silk Air.

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