According to a Daily Mail report, Dubai’s long-haul carrier Emirates will ship aid from the World Health Organization and other groups into India for free, to help fight a crushing outbreak of the coronavirus in the country, the airline said Sunday.
The report says that the offer by Emirates, which has some 95 flights weekly to nine cities in India, initially involves aid already in Dubai but may expand across the carrier’s network as time goes on.
This could mean major savings for aid groups as airfreight costs have skyrocketed amid the pandemic as demand for flown cargo stands at record levels worldwide.
Emirates made the announcement at Dubai’s International Humanitarian City, already home to a WHO warehouse that’s been crucial to the distribution of medical gear worldwide.
Nabil Sultan, the divisional senior vice president for Emirates SkyCargo, said the initial priority would be shipping aid out of Dubai, rather than elsewhere from its network and while airfreight costs stand at record prices, Sultan said offering free shipping for aid to India now was important for an airline that has flown to the South Asian country since the carrier’s founding in 1985.
Sultan told The Associated Press, “Our relationship with India in particular goes a long way and at times like this, I think it’s absolutely essential that we make sure that essential commodities get to India and to the Indian people,” adding, “This is the time for us to give back.”
Emirates already had been shipping in masks, gloves and other protective gear, as well as diffusers as oxygen remains in short supply for those gasping to breath in the throes of the virus, Sultan said.
As the Indian diaspora tries to send in more aid, Sultan said the airline would evaluate whether to expand the program to include shipments coming from outside of Dubai as well, Sultan said, “As a phase two and three, we will be looking at a range of opportunities for people to sort of donate if they wish, where we can provide capacity to those sort of donations and move them to India.”
Robert Blanchard, who oversees the emergency operation in Dubai for the WHO, praised Emirates for offering the free cargo flights said that his warehouse continues to juggle aid for the coronavirus while shipping out gear for cholera and Ebola outbreaks with just eight staffers and he warned that while countries in the West and in the UAE enjoyed quicker access to vaccines, what India faces serves a warning to the rest of the world, saying, “There’s a long way to go before we get back to normal,” adding. “And although the vaccines offer a lot of promise, what we’re seeing is that the quantities that are available and the rate of distribution is simply not enough to handle the pandemic.”
An edited report by John Alwyn-Jones, Special Correspondent Aviation
