India To Resume Regular International Flights From March 27: Here Are The New Guidelines
Regular international flights, from and to India which were suspended on March 23, 2020, will resume from Sunday (March 27).
Ahead of the resumption of service, the Airports Authority of India has revised its guidelines for international flights.
One of the major changes in guidelines is that the requirement of airlines keeping three seats vacant for social distancing has now been removed.
This decision comes in consideration of the ¡°decreasing cases¡± of the Covid-19 virus and the ¡°successful vaccination drive¡±.
Revised guidelines
The requirement of a complete Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kit for the crew members, as per the revised guidelines, has also been removed.
"The pat-down search conducted by the security personnel at the airport is re-introduced. Though wearing masks at the airport or aircraft should still be continued," the guidelines issued on Saturday said.
On March 8, the Civil Aviation Ministry had announced that regular commercial flights will resume on March 27.
"After having recognised the increased vaccination coverage across the globe and in consultation with the stakeholders, the government of India has decided to resume?scheduled commercial international passenger services," the ministry of civil aviation said in a statement.
On Friday, Dubai-based Emirates Airline will reinstate pre-pandemic flight frequencies to its destinations in India from April 1.
The airline will be operating 170 weekly flights to nine cities in the country, including 35 weekly flights to Mumbai, 28 to New Delhi, 24 to Bengaluru and 21 to Chennai amongst others.
"The move comes on the back of the decision by the Indian government to restore international flights to and from the country in line with established bilateral agreements from the end of March 2022," the airline said in a statement.
"Emirates has also brought back its customer-favourite Airbus A380 on a daily basis between Dubai and Mumbai in March 2022. Emirates flight EK 500/501 is operated by the iconic double decker aircraft."
Regular scheduled international flight operations were?suspended to and from India on March 23, 2020.?
Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday said that domestic air traffic which was at 3.9 million passengers per day fell to 1.16 million during the third wave under the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
However, the numbers bounced back to 3.83 million as of now close to the pre-COVID number of 4.1 million passengers per day.
¡°And I am very confident that within the next year, we will surpass the number of pre-COVID of 4.1 million passengers and create a new historic record in India,¡± he said.
The number of international passengers which was close to 60 million in 2018-19 fell to almost 10 million after COVID restrictions. The minister hoped that as the restrictions are being lifted from March 27, the country will be reconnected to the rest of the world through normal flights.
He hoped that by 2024-25 India will witness 410 million flying passengers.
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