Thais stranded at Cairo airport to be evacuated via Jordan

BANGKOK, Jan 31 — Thai nationals stranded at Cairo airport will be evacuated from Egypt via Jordan, with a chartered flight scheduled to leave Bangkok at 8am Tuesday for Jordan and expected to return to Thailand on Wednesday, according to a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Information Department director-general Thani Thongphakdi said the ministry chartered a Boeing 737 from Jordanian Airlines now at Cairo airport to transfer the Thai nationals to Amman, the capital of Jordan, before 3pm local time.

They would stay overnight in Amman awaiting a chartered flight from Bangkok to bring them home, he said.

The chartered aircraft would leave Bangkok at 8am on Tuesday and was scheduled to arrive at Amman at 1pm local time, he said, adding that the flight would return to Bangkok with the passengers promptly.

They were expected to land at Bangkok at 2am on the next day, said Mr Thani.

He added that the schedule was tentative as gaining permission to fly over Egyptian airspace at the moment is not easy and the timeframe was very tight to avoid curfew being enforced at 4pm.

Mr Thani said earlier that there are some 80 Thais at the airport, 45 of whom wanted to return to Thailand, while the rest are Thai workers want to travel to European countries.

All Thais in Egypt are reported safe and Thai embassy officials have contacted them regularly, he said.

Officials were also sent to the airport and stay there for 24 hours to take care of the Thais there.

A number of countries sent aircraft Monday to evacuate their citizens from the unrest in Egypt, where rioters threaten to overturn the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak whom they blame for widespread poverty, inflation, official indifference and brutality during his 30 years in power.  (MCOT online news)