“People didn’t pay anything for the flight from Jordan,” the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Adam Čörgő, responded on Friday afternoon to the first version of the article, which was based on currently available information, which indicated that the flight was charged.
When asked how it was possible that some passengers talked about having to sign an undertaking to pay, the spokesman said he knew nothing about it.
“For the flight from Amman, Jordan, 15,000 was paid per person,” an employee of the emergency line of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Novinka on Friday morning, adding that people did not have to pay the amount immediately, but signed a commitment to pay it later. According to her, it was not a repatriation flight, but a regular commercial flight. The plane landed in Prague on Thursday evening.
Some passengers described a similar experience. According to information from the ČT24 website, they said after their arrival that they had to sign “some kind of commitment”.
Prime Minister Babiš assured on Wednesday that people will not pay. “None of the people paid for Smartwings and will not,” he told Radiožurnál.
Foreign Minister Petr Macinka previously spoke about the amount of 15,000 crowns. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to Novinek’s questions on whether the flight was free or whether people paid something, and the minister did not respond at all to the text message sent after the phone call.
On Friday morning, Babiš announced another flight on the X network. “The first repatriation flight to Dubai has departed. The leased Smartwings Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will bring 189 passengers,” he wrote. He added that the consulate mainly contacted sick, pregnant women and families with children registered in the Drozd system. That is, in a database that Czechs can register in before traveling abroad, so that the authorities can easily contact them in case of an emergency.
Air tickets are now significantly more expensive
About 4,900 Czechs are now registered in the Drozd travel system in countries affected by the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran, about 500 fewer than on Thursday. The largest number of them remain in the United Arab Emirates – almost 2,900. Roughly 900 Czechs are in Oman, a few hundred in Jordan, Qatar, Israel or Saudi Arabia.
Air tickets from the region are now significantly more expensive than before the outbreak of the conflict, and on some routes they cost several times the normal price. It’s the same with flights from Asia via Dubai or Doha.
