Waiting To Fly Internationally? – Here’s An Update For You

When travel has become so important these days, all we could now think of is, when international travel would resume. Are you someone waiting for the restrictions on international flights to ease? Then here are a few updates for you about international flights resumption and the conditions set by the government for its operation:

When the corona cases started to come up, the government took a few steps to suspend the flights. And it was on March 25 when all the major countries went on lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19. The government suspended all the international and domestic flights as airports might become a hotspot. This resulted in a few people not being able to travel back to their homeland from foreign countries.

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Flights operating so far

Here is a list of flights that are operating with proper conditionalities in order to help people:

• To help the stranded people, India brought in something called Vande Bharat Mission which helped people reach their destinations.
• On May 25, after two long months of suspension, domestic flights started to operate in India.

Resumption of international flights

India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted on June 20, about when the international travel would restart. Though he hasn’t given a specific date, he revealed two conditions for international flights to start operating. Below is what Hardeep Singh Puri said:

1. Since India has now allowed the operation of domestic flights for almost one month now, it should get traffic of 50-60% for the next big step
2. It is also important that the other countries open up to let international flights land without present conditionalities

We can start regular international flights when our domestic traffic reaches about 50-60% & other countries open up to international traffic without present conditionalities.

Once the situation evolves in that direction we will consider a calibrated opening.@MoCA_GoI

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 20, 2020

Very recently, in a press conference, India’s Civil Aviation Minister also said that when all other countries start to resume their international flights, India would definitely consider. In this situation, especially when no one is sure about the exact time when it would happen, Puri said that resumption would happen depending on how open the other countries are to receive international flights. Even the Civil Aviation Secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola said the same thing when asked about international travel.

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Hardeep Singh Puri also added that it’s highly important that other countries should loosen up their travel restrictions. In order to operate international flights, there has to be traffic. Once this happens, India would definitely restart functioning the international flights in a more calibrated way. Until then, it will only be repatriation and evacuation flights that would be operated in India.

Evacuation & repatriation flights continue in managed & controlled conditions under VBM till countries open up to normal international traffic. More than 120K people have returned to India on Vande Bharat flights so far. 4411 people have returned from various countries on 22 June pic.twitter.com/5sFm59ij46

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 22, 2020

How is everyone welcoming flight resumption?

Only 30% of pre-pandemic capacity is now allowed for airlines to operate as per the Indian government’s restrictions. It was recently Indigo’s chief executive, Ronojoy Dutta asked the government to increase it gradually to 50%. From the Civil Aviation Minister’s tweet, it is clear that on the 27th day since domestic flights operation restarted in India, the country’s airports have handled 70,552 passengers in total. While international flights remain banned in India, our neighbouring country Bangladesh resumed its operation on 21 June after an intensive suspension.

With more than 70,000 passengers & 797 departures on Day 27 (20 June 2020) since recommencement of domestic operations, the daily trends continue on a positive trajectory.
Till date we have had more than 1.5 million passengers on 17,477 flights.
These numbers continue to grow. pic.twitter.com/faODElLekc

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 21, 2020

Due to the reason that the country is now moving on from an intensive lockdown, there is a glimmer of hope for international travel to resume in a few days. It is more important that we travel safely by taking all the precautionary measures if international travel starts to resume. Unlock safe travel with Pickyourtrail!

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