Air India will fly two planes to Tripoli on Friday night to start evacuating about 18,000 Indians stranded in strife-torn Libya.

"Air India has decided to fly two planes - one from Delhi and another from Mumbai - to Triploi to evacuate stranded Indians on the request from the officials of external affairs ministry," an Air India official said.

Both the flights, AI 171 from Mumbai to Tripoli and AI 161 from Delhi to Tripoli, would take off at 0115 hours and reach Libyan capital Tripoli at 0700 hours (local time).

The return flights, AI 170 from Tripoli to Mumbai and AI 160 from Tripoli to Delhi, would depart at 1000 hours (Libya time) and reach India at 2015 hours.

The national carrier has deployed Airbus 330, with a capacity of 270 seats, from Delhi and Boeing 747, with a capacity of 400, from Mumbai.

Earlier, external affairs minister S M Krishna had said that Libyan government has given landing clearance for two Air India planes per day from tomorrow for evacuation of Indian nationals.

Two flights had been given clearance to operate by Libyan authorities for ten days.