India Extends Ban On International Flights Until January 31st, Flights to and from The UK Will Remain Suspended Till January 7
The Indian Civil Aviation Regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Wednesday announced that it has extended the suspension of all scheduled International commercial passenger flights to and from India till January 31st due to Covid-19 pandemic. The DGCA also said that international flights to and from the United Kingdom will remain suspended till January 7.
According to PTI, the suspension comes in the wake of the discovery of cases of a new infectious strain of SARS-Cov-2, first detected in the United Kingdom. The union health ministry on December 30 recommended the civil aviation ministry to extend the suspension of India-UK flights till January 7.
“All the international passengers who have arrived in India during the last 14 days (from December 9 to 22), if symptomatic and tested positive, will be subjected to genome sequencing,” the union health ministry said in a statement on December 30.
Decision has been taken to extend the temporary suspension of flights to & from the UK till 7 January 2021.
Thereafter strictly regulated resumption will take place for which details will be announced shortly.
— Hardeep Singh Puri (मोदी का परिवार) (@HardeepSPuri) December 30, 2020
The civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said that flights will resume in a strictly regulated manner after January 7, 2021. “Decision has been taken to extend the temporary suspension of flights to & from the UK till 7 January 2021. Thereafter strictly regulated resumption will take place for which details will be announced shortly,” Puri said on Twitter.
“In partial modification of circular dated 26-06-2020, the competent authority has further extended the validity of circular issued on the subject cited above regarding Scheduled International commercial passenger services to/from India till 2359 hrs IST of 31st January 2021,” a notification from the industry regulator said.
— DGCA (@DGCAIndia) December 30, 2020
However, the DGCA said that the ban will not apply to all international-cargo and international scheduled flights approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.The aviation regulator also stated that international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the “competent authority” on case to case basis.
At this stage, India has established bilateral air bubble agreement with as many as 19 countries and Air India has been operating Vande bharat Mission flights to repatriate Indians stranded abroad.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic,scheduled international passenger services have been suspended in India since March 23.
