Air raid alerts now routine, say UAE & Saudi Arabia returnees

Nagpur: "Initially, I would hurriedly park my bike by the roadside and take cover whenever an air raid alert came on my phone. But soon I got used to it and just kept moving. These days, hardly anyone on the road pays attention to the alerts," said Venkat Nagandera, a bike rider for a mobility app in Dubai.Nagandera, who hails from Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, was among the 165 passengers who got down from Air Arabia's Sharjah-Nagpur flight that landed here at 4am on Sunday. Elderly parents who went to stay with their children, expatriate workers, IT professionals and even NRIs were among the passengers.Over 100 passengers left for Sharjah as the same plane returned. "The passengers flying back to Sharjah were expatriates or those on a visit to their kin," said airport sources.Air Arabia suspended regular service after the US-Iran war but is operating intermittent flights to the city. Four flights have reached here since March. First flight had landed on March 13, second on March 15, and the third on April 3.Passengers who landed here on Sunday had come from Sharjah, Dubai and even Saudi Arabia. Coming out of the terminals, they didn't show any signs of distress. "It was a planned journey and we were not stranded," said the passengers TOI spoke to. Air raids that ping on their phones have become like routine notifications, rather than any warning, they said.Nagendra, who quit his job in the Gulf and was heading to catch a train to his hometown, said. "I left not due to the war but because they paid a paltry amount. The attacks only happened at border areas or the American establishments in Dubai. Common people like us were not the target," he said."After every air raid alert on mobile phones, we used to just stay away from windows for some time and get back to work soon after," said Vandanda Deshpande, who returned from Sharjah after a two-month stay with her daughter.Seventy-nine-year-old Mohammed Ansari from Kamptee was also returning after two months. "There was a slight concern initially, but now even the bombing alerts have become routine. It gets normal within 10 minutes. Rather, we had a very comfortable stay," said Ansari, also a veteran athlete.Some elderly passengers travelling alone on wheelchairs gave a similar reaction. A worker in an embroidery unit came out with a trolley loaded with gifts as his family eagerly waited to welcome him. "I am on annual leave," he said.A passenger from the eastern part of Saudi Arabia also spoke of getting alerts before quietly walking towards the taxi stand at the airport.The other international flight from Nagpur by Qatar Airways, which flies to Doha, is yet to resume its operations.