To & from IGI: Flights to 28 new global destinations

NEW DELHI: The post-Covid world may not be an oyster for now, but the capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport has seen direct charter flights operate to and from 28 destinations globally, which were not connected to the city earlier.
Indians flew in and foreigners flew out on these first-time direct routes like Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Brisbane in Australasia, Dublin in Ireland, Lubumbashi in Congo and Minsk in Belarus.
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) said 92 repatriation flights, with 8,000 passengers, flew to and from these 28 cities.
Air India said it operated flights from Delhi and Mumbai to 20 cities where no other Indian carrier had been to in “recent memory”. Among these included Auckland, Vancouver, Minsk, Manama, Helsinki, Dublin and Seychelles.
The national carrier is hoping to start regular flights to some of these non-network destinations like Auckland and Vancouver, given their huge demand. SpiceJet, meanwhile, flew all-cargo charters to new destinations like Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, Baghdad, Cebu, Tashkent, Incheon, Khartoum, Cairo, Bishkek, Almaty and Moscow.
Several foreign airlines operating charters to fly out foreigners from India flew in to New Delhi for the first time. Among them included Air New Zealand, Qantas, South African Airways, Garuda Indonesia, EgyptAir, Niger Air and Brussels Airlines. “Operation of these international flights ensured that IGI airport was kept ready for resumption of international flights in the ‘new normal’ environment,” a DIAL official claimed.
Some of these international flights flew in to Delhi and/or to other Indian cities to pick or drop repatriation passengers. Mumbai airport, for instance, for the first time saw airlines like Air New Zealand, TUI UK & Netherlands, Avia Traffic Company, Salam Air and Wamos Air; and Qantas and South African Airways after a long time. Air cargo at CSI Airport in Mumbai also saw new destinations like Limburg in Netherlands on ad-hoc basis.
Given the demand for travel between these potentially new direct routes — amid an increasing preference to fly non-stop, instead of halting at different airport in the post-corona world — airport operators are sensing an opportunity.
“Many of these new destinations with high tourism potential may attract airlines to add to their scheduled service routes. A recent entry among the most favoured destinations for Indian students is New Zealand,” a DIAL official explained.