India is negotiating with 13 countries, including Australia, Japan and Singapore, to establish separate bilateral air bubble arrangements for international flight operations, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.

Under a bilateral air bubble pact, airlines of both the countries can operate international flights with certain restrictions. Puri said air bubbles have also been proposed with neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan.

Since July, India has established such bubbles with the following countries — the US, the UK, France, Germany, the UAE, Qatar and the Maldives.

Puri said, “We are now taking these efforts forward and are negotiating with 13 more countries to establish such arrangements.”

“These countries include Australia, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Bahrain, Israel, Kenya, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.”

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Airport privatisation

The ministry of civil aviation will place a proposal for “further” privatisation of airports before the Union cabinet on Wednesday, Puri said.

In the first round, the airports in Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati were cleared for development through public-private partnership model in February 2019.

The Airports Authority of India had in September 2019 recommended privatisation of airports in Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.