New coronavirus strain: India suspends flights from UK till December 31

Trade

• Watchlist
• Portfolio
• Message
• Set Alert

 

 

live

• bselive
• nselive

Volume

Todays L/H

More

×

The government of India has suspended all flights originating from the UK to India until December 31, in view of the rising spread of a new coronavirus strain there.

"This suspension to start w.e.f. 23.59 hours, 22nd December 2020. Consequently, flights from India to the UK shall stand temporarily suspended during the above said period," the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement on Twitter on December 21.

Follow new coronavirus strain live updates on Moneycontrol

The announcement follows the discovery of a new strain of COVID-19 in the UK, leading to several nations restricting flight services to Britain. India joins a growing list of countries that have already announced restrictions on travel to the UK. These countries include Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The Ministry further added that passengers arriving from the UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned.

Also Read: New coronavirus strain in the UK: Scientists’ concerns and what we know so far

Earlier today, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government is alert and there is no need to panic. He said the government had done everything that was important to handle the COVID-19 situation in the last one year.

Responding to a question on the panic over the new strain and a demand to ban flights from the UK, Vardhan told reporters, "I would say this to all that all these imaginary situations, imaginary talks, imaginary panic... don't involve yourself in this."

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said the new strain "was out of control”. Some of the areas that have been impacted include London and south-east England. It prompted UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose a new set of restrictions for these areas, practically ending any possible Christmas celebrations.

Services to the UK

As of now, Air India, Vistara, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic operate services between India and the UK. The two countries have an air bubble arrangement.

While Virgin Atlantic had four weekly flights each from Delhi and Mumbai, to London, British Airways had six and five flights, respectively. Vistara had one daily flight from Delhi.

Air India has been the most aggressive of all airlines on routes to the UK, which is also among the most popular tourist destinations and has a sizable population of those of Indian origin.

The national carrier had plans to fly from eight Indian cities to London. Apart from Delhi and Mumbai, the list included Kochi, Goa, Amritsar, Chennai and Ahmedabad. The carrier also had started flights on the Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham sector from December 11.

“Vistara will comply with the government’s decision to suspend all flights originating from the UK to India. In order to minimize inconvenience to our customers, we will enable one-time free-of-charge rescheduling of affected bookings to any date until 31 December 2021,”  said a Vistara spokesperson.

SpiceJet had planned to start operations to the UK in December, but postponed it after the UK government announced a fresh lockdown in November.

Focus on domestic

The travel industry, however, sees minimal impact from the suspension as traffic numbers hadn't picked up by much on international routes.

"The impact of the current flight cancellation to UK will have a negligible impact on tourist traffic. Due to current environment of Covid and the quarantine rules, tourism  to the UK in any case had not picked up," said Nishant Pitti, CEO, EaseMyTrip.com, an online travel agency.

He expects international travel getting back to normalcy only by the winter of 2021. Instead, domestic tourism has picked up.

"Now we see a faster growth and demand for domestic tourism, especially when the international option is limited. Travelers are aspiring to travel and take a break and the focus will be choosing Indian destinations," Pitti added.  He said the OTA's domestic flight bookings have already reached 85 percent of the pre-COVID-19 levels.