International air travel to and from the country will continue only under the “air-bubble” arrangement for the foreseeable future, according to Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia.
If certain routes see a spurt in demand, the government could look at increasing frequency of flights within the “air-bubble”.
“Within our current air-bubble arrangement, we are scaling up. Earlier, U.K. was only 15 flights, which we have now increased to 35 flights. We are going to do this across the board. As the demand goes up, we are going to increase that [the number of flights] in the air-bubble,” Mr. Scindia said at an event organised by Public Affairs Forum of India. He was responding to a question on resumption of international flights.
“International travel is not governed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation alone, but also by the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs and [also depends on] other countries,” Mr. Scindia said, implying that concerns over the spread of COVID-19 as well as travel restrictions by various countries were hindering India from fully opening up international travel.
Scheduled international flights were banned by the government on March 23 last year. Later that year, the government started gradually opening up the skies by entering into “air bubble” agreements with various countries, with a limited number of direct flights permitted to and from India. India now has “air bubble” tie-ups with 28 countries.