Air India to Fly 114 Flights from 17 Countries
Currently under the fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has announced that air india will operate a total of 114 flights while indigo and GoAir will fly 457 and 41 flights respectively between July 3 and July 15. The indian government has launched Vande Bharat Mission, the largest operation to repatriate indians who had been stranded across the globe because of COVID-19 related restrictions. Many international passenger flights have been suspended in india since march 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to sources, air india will fly 114 flights to india from 17 countries, canada, the US, the UK, kenya, sri lanka, philippines, kyrgyzstan, saudi arabia, bangladesh, thailand, south africa, russia, australia, Myanmar, japan, ukraine, and Vietnam. air india released a statement through its social media handle. The statement reads as "Air india will operate 31 flights between india and USA and 9 flights between india and canada from July 3 to July 15 under Vande Bharat Mission. Tickets can be booked through the air india website only effective 8 pm on june 29, equivalent to New York and Toronto (EDT 10:30 am of june 29), Chicago (CDT 9:30 am of june 29) and san francisco (PDT 7:70 am of june 29)."
Meanwhile the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) banned all flight operations in the country till april 14 due to novel coronavirus pandemic. The government started the services of scheduled domestic passenger flights from May 25th. Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Singh puri on june 20 said that the government is sketching out strategies to start scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated that it is extending the suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country until July 15 but added that a few international scheduled services on selected routes may be allowed.