Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], Mar 31 : European tourists, who were stranded in Kerala following coronavirus lockdown, left for Frankfurt in a special Air India flight on Tuesday.
The batch consisted of 232 tourists, majority of them from Germany.
The evacuation process was carried out following joint efforts by Indian authorities, Kerala Tourism and the Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany.
The special flight arranged for the home-bound journey of the asymptomatic tourists took off from the international airport here in the morning.
"We are glad that the foreign tourists have been able to fly back home after their stay in the state. It was not an easy task to bring together the tourists stranded in different locations in 13 districts. We have taken great care to ensure that they did not face any difficulty during their stay," said Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran.
He said that some other countries including UK have sought the state government's help for facilitating the transportation of the tourists from their countries.
The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany had come forward to operate charter flights.
The flight was arranged as part of an agreement between the German Embassy and Air India with required clearances from Ministry of External Affairs and Civil Aviation Ministry.
( With inputs from ANI )