Possibility of international travel bubbles, increase in domestic travel, more repatriation flights under Vande Bharat Mission — here’s what the Indian aviation sector is up to. By Tanvi Jain
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India is likely to create international travel bubbles from next month onwards, media reports suggest. These will allow Indians to travel to and from specific destinations abroad.
Moreover, the Government is also expecting an increase in domestic travel in the next month. “With more than 70,000 passengers and 797 departures on Day 27 (20 June 2020) since the recommencement of domestic operations, the daily trends continue on a positive trajectory. Till date, we have had more than 1.5 million passengers on 17,477 flights. These numbers continue to grow,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri recently tweeted.
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“Evacuation and repatriation flights continue in managed and controlled conditions under VBM till countries open up to normal international traffic. More than 120K people have returned to India on Vande Bharat flights so far. 4411 people have returned from various countries on 22 June,” he further confirmed.
As far as international travel is concerned, destinations like the United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia seem to be more in demand, so are likely to have travel bubbles from India.
However, Puri has also put up a condition on the resumption of international flights, as he said, “We can start regular international flights when our domestic traffic reaches about 50-60% and other countries open up to international traffic without present conditionalities. Once the situation evolves in that direction, we will consider a calibrated opening.”
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Recently, Fiji had reportedly revealed that it is considering to form a travel bubble between New Zealand and Australia, and is likely to call it Bula Bubble. New Zealand and Australia had first opened discussions about creating their own travel bubble back in May. Apart from the two countries, others such as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have already prepared a blueprint of the travel bubble which says that those who haven’t travelled to anywhere outside these countries within 14 days, aren’t infected by Coronavirus, or haven’t come in contact with COVID-19 positive person can travel within the bubble. Moreover, Finland and Poland have also expressed interest in being a part of the said bubble.
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