33 hours in flight and 33 back to back meetings! PM Modi surely had a busy trip abroad

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is back in India after a multination trip, spent more than a third of his time abroad, commuting from one country to another.

Out of the 95 hours that he spent on the trip, the PM spent 33 hours flying in his Air India Boeing, sources told ET.

In the remaining time, he attended 33 back-to-back engagements and meetings in the US, Portugal and the Netherlands, thus making it one of the busiest foreign trips by an Indian PM.

Adhering to his rule of not spending a night in a country unless there is an engagement scheduled for the next day, PM Modi didn’t spend a night in either Netherlands or Portugal.

The same rule was followed when he flew from Lisbon to Washington DC, thereon to Hague and then back to India.

His itinerary included flying 10 hours to Lisbon from Delhi, where he had a briefing in the VVIP lounge of the Lisbon Airport itself, thus saving time that he could have spent in going to a hotel and checking in. From the airport, he left straight for Portugal’s foreign ministry.

After meetings with the officials and having a working lunch, PM Modi visited the Champalimaud Foundation, held an interaction with the Indian community and flew out from the Lisbon Airport for Washington DC.

After being in flight bound to Washington for nearly eight hours, he checked into the Willard Continental Hotel with his team, where he had 17 engagements over the next two days. However, instead of spending a second night in Washington DC, he flew to the Netherlands, had about seven engagements, and then flew straight to Delhi.