Regular international flights resumed on Sunday after a coronavirus pandemic-induced hiatus of approximately two years.
India banned scheduled international flights on March 23, 2020. During the last two years, limited international passenger flights were operating between India and select countries under bilateral air bubble arrangements. On March 8, the civil aviation ministry announced that regular overseas flights would resume from March 27 amid a decline in coronavirus cases. It also relaxed various Covid-19 guidelines.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital, the country's largest airport, expects international flight departures to witness a significant jump from the first week of April.
While Indian carriers are prepared for normal international services, various foreign airlines, including Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and LOT Polish, have announced plans about their services.
As many as 60 airlines from 40 countries have been permitted to operate 1,783 frequencies to and from India during the summer schedule, according to the DGCA. The summer schedule will run from March 27 till October 29.
A total of 1,466 international departures per week have been approved for six Indian carriers for the summer schedule. They will operate to 43 destinations in 27 countries, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
India’s largest airline IndiGo on Sunday said it will resume scheduled international flights on 150-plus routes in a phased manner from next month. “Scheduled operations to destinations in Thailand have already commenced from March 27,” IndiGo said in the statement.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Delhi International Airport Limited said, “Post resumption of commercial operations, South East Asia and Europe are expected to be the main drivers of further international passenger growth.”
The spokesperson had also said the number of international air traffic movements is likely to increase from 165 per day to 300 per day in summer.
The total weekly departures of international flights are expected to increase 66 per cent in the first week of April once the regular overseas flights commence, according to the spokesperson. This is in comparison to the flights that operated under bilateral air bubble arrangements during winter 2021.
On Friday, Gulf carrier Emirates said it would re-introduce pre-pandemic service frequencyfrom April 1.
Prior to late March 2020, Emirates was operating 170 weekly flights to nine destinations, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta.
All these flights are being restored now, starting from April 1, as per the airline.
These 170 weekly flights include 35 services to Mumbai, 28 to Delhi, 24 to Bangalore, 21 each to Chennai and Hyderabad, 14 to Kochi and 11 to Calcutta.
