Flight leaves Don Mueang this morning to evacuate 142 Thais from Wuhan

[webfact]

Flight leaves Don Mueang this morning to evacuate 142 Thais from Wuhan

 

 

A group of Thai medics left Don Mueang international airport this morning for the Chinese city of Wuhan, on a flight chartered from Thai Air Asia, to evacuate 142 Thais stranded there after a lock-down, imposed on January 23rd by the Chinese government, to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.

 

Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who had planned to join the medical team, cancelled his trip last night after he was informed by Chinese authorities that his status as a minister of the Thai government could complicate the evacuation plan due to a protocol problem. He was, however at the airport this morning send off the 15-member medical team, led by Mr. Apichart Wachiraphan, director of Bamrasnaradura Hospital.

 

Mr. Anutin said this morning that he is confident that the evacuation will go smoothly adding, however, that any of the evacuees found to have a fever before boarding will be held for examination and will have to wait for the next flight. 

 

Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/flight-leaves-don-mueang-this-morning-to-evacuate-142-thais-from-wuhan/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2020-02-04

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[faraday]

When people - from whatever crisis they are evacuated, do they have to pay for the flight?

[mtls2005]

12 minutes ago, webfact said:

Mr. Anutin said this morning that he is confident that the evacuation will go smoothly adding, however, that any of the evacuees found to have a fever before boarding will be held for examination and will have to wait for the next flight. 

 

"The next flight"?

 

 

[SpanishExpat]

9 minutes ago, faraday said:

When people - from whatever crisis they are evacuated, do they have to pay for the flight?

sure they have. At least in Europe. The 1XX Germans rescued from Wuhan last week had to pay "a price similar to an one-way economy ticket". That`s how it was told in the German media. The real costs of the operation were of course higher than the 500-800Euro p.P

[Estrada]

15 hours ago, faraday said:

When people - from whatever crisis they are evacuated, do they have to pay for the flight?

Not for Thais, and Anutin spends has been spending his spare time for years flying human organs from various airports in Thailland, to hospitals where people need transplants. He does that for free flying his own aircraft.  In this case, he needs a bigger aircraft than he has in his own fleet so he asked his close friends who own Air Asia to do Thailand a favour, and the flight will be free. When I arranged for the Thai workers to be evacuated from Libya, when the war started, that flight was also free and they did not have to pay for their flights. The same went for the Philippino workers.

[DoctorG]

Has it been announced anywhere yet as to where they will be in quarantine?

The initial report said it was an undisclosed location and a TVF member posted it was a naval base. Do we really know anything about the facilities being provided?

[PETERTHEEATER]

On 2/4/2020 at 8:04 AM, webfact said:

Flight leaves Don Mueang this morning to evacuate 142 Thais from Wuhan

I can hardly contain my excitement.......