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Dubai: A Dubai-based Indian businessman on Thursday said he chartered nine flights from Dubai to Muscat and back to enable 1,980 visit visa holders to change their visa, just before the suspension of new visas to prevent spread of coronavirus in UAE came into effect.
The UAE on March 14 announced that issuance of all new visas, except for diplomats, would be temporarily suspended from March 17 until further notice. As soon as the announcement was made, hundreds of visit visa holders went into a panic as they were torn between flying back to their home countries under the current circumstances and being stranded here without valid visas. It later emerged that those inside the country could avail visa changes from within the country itself.
However, before this clarification came about, Afi Ahmed, managing director of Smart Travel, an authorised visa change dealer of a UAE-based airline, decided to charter nine flights to cater to the 1,980 visit visa holders.
“Almost 60 per cent of the visa holders were our customers. They were all scared about going home or getting stranded here. When there was such a large number of people panicking about their visa change within the deadline, I decided to charter the flights,” Ahmed told Gulf News.
He said the rest of the passengers were customers of other partner agencies. A vast majority of the passengers’ visas were about to expire.
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“There were a few people whose visas had already expired. They had to pay the fine,” he said.
Ahmed said it was a huge responsibility with a degree of risk involved. The task at hand was to ensure the visitors receive their visas in time and even if some didn’t get it, they could leave the airport before the deadline.
He said he chartered nine flights with 189-passenger capacity to Muscat and they operated from 10pm on March 15 till 3pm on March 16.
“Usually, we send around 30 to 40 customers per flight for their visa run. These flights were exclusively for visit visa holders. Once they exited from here, we applied for their visas in cooperation with our partners. Only four people’s visas were not approved on the same day due to certain reasons. They were flown back home.”
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The post Coronavirus: How an Indian businessman chartered 9 flights to enable 1,980 UAE visitors get new visas appeared first on The Wealth Land.
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