Every once in a while we come across a person or two who fell asleep and missed their flight. But a repatriation flight from another country in the middle of a pandemic is perhaps not the best circumstances for a nap.
In March, we read about how an United Arab Emirates-based Indian expat was stranded after he reportedly fell asleep while waiting for his flight back home. Keep in mind that the man had cleared immigration and security, and missed the final boarding call by a few minutes.
Soon after the incident, flights had been temporarily cancelled amid the escalating COVID-19 outbreak.
Now, it would seem that history is repeating itself.
As per a Gulf News report, another Indian worker nodded off while waiting for his flight recently. Not having slept on Wednesday night as he waited for confirmation about his flight, 53-year-old P Shajahan had fallen asleep while waiting for his flight to Kerala on Thursday. He had paid approximately Rs 22,000 for his seat on the "first ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation" and had cleared the check-in procedures and the rapid test. It was in the waiting area outside the boarding gate that he fell asleep. As per officials who coordinated the flight, he woke up and called them soon after the flight had left.
But even as Shajahan grappled with how he would reach Kerala now, there were additional concerns. “Since his visa was cancelled, he could not come out of the airport. He had only eaten the snacks in the kit KMCC had given. We managed to give him some cash for buying food through KMCC volunteer Alamsha Latheef,” the publication quoted Jasimkhan Kallambalam, the organising secretary of KMCC Thiruvananthapuram to add.
Reportedly, the coordinators are now trying to send him home via another flight that was slated to be chartered on Saturday.
