New Delhi: In a humanitarian gesture, private carrier Vistara has provided free tickets to the families of soldiers who were injured in the Uri terror attack to facilitate them visit the jawans admitted in hospitals in New Delhi and Srinagar. Vistara, a joint venture of Tata and Singapore Airlines, has till now provided 25 free tickets to the families to visit the injured jawans and also to the soldiers to return home.
The airline will also be providing free tickets to the family of the martyred jawans and injured soldiers to visit Mumbai for a felicitation ceremony being organised by a different entity on October 20.
“This is a small gesture of our gratitude to the brave-heart Uri soldiers for their selfless service to the nation. This was the least we could do to unite the injured soldiers with their family,” a Vistara spokesperson said.
The soldiers who were injured in the terror attack on an army base in Uri in Kashmir have been hospitalised in either Army Research and Referral hospital here or the base hospital in Srinagar.
In a normal course, once they are discharged, the soldiers are given a “free warrant” (train ticket) for the class of travel they are entitled to.
Since Vistara does not operate in many cities, especially to Patna and most of the injured were from Bihar, the airline provided free tickets from the nearby airport in Varanasi.
The tickets offered were either for premium economy or business class, defence sources said.
Vistara currently operates over 430 weekly flights from 18 domestic airports.