Vande Bharat Mission, Phase 3: Air India offers more seats as demand goes up
In the wake of “overwhelming” booking, Air India Saturday said it would offer more seats on its flights under the third phase of the Centre’s Vande Bharat Mission. The announcement came a day after the Indian national carrier opened bookings for 300 flights from select destinations, including the US and the UK, between June 10 and July 1.
Between 5 pm Friday and 8 am Saturday, the airline company website had a surge in the trafic with “6-7 times more activity”and subsequently over 22,000 seats were sold.
“Demand for seats from India on flights planned under Mission Vande Bharat-3 is overwhelming. Sectors/ Flights are being opened in systematic manner for booking, on the website,” the company tweeted. “Sale of tickets commenced at 5 pm yesterday for select destinations in USA, Canada, UK & Europe under Phase3 of #VBM. Our website experienced 6-7 times more activity & over 22000 seats have been sold overall till 8 am. More seats to more destinations will be added in due course.”
#FlyAI: sale of tickets commenced at 5pm yesterday for select destinations in USA,Canada,UK & Europe under Phase3 of #VBM. Our website experienced 6-7 times more activity & over 22000 seats hv been sold overall till 8am. More seats to more destinations will be added in due course
— Air India (@airindia) June 6, 2020
The airline also reported six crore hits on its website during the first two hours of opening the bookings, news agency PTI reported.
As part of the Centre’s repatriation programme, the airline will operate around 300 flights to Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK and Africa.
At 8.20 pm on Friday, it tweeted: “Bookings for select destinations in USA, Canada,UK and Europe etc under Phase3 of #MissionVandeBharat opened at 5 pm today. Around 60 million hits received till 7pm on our website & 1700 seats sold through the website alone in 2 hrs. Bookings continue and tickets are being issued.”
However, due to the rush, several passengers showed their anger on social media and noticed failure on the sites.
Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express had started operating international flights from May 7 onwards as part of the Vande Bharat Mission, to repatriate Indians abroad. The first phase was from May 7 to May 16, following which the second phase started.
Between May 7 and June 1, Air India group has operated a total 423 inbound international flights under the mission, airlifting 58,867 Indian citizens back to the country.
