Air Bubbles Likely To Continue Till March-April 2021: Hardeep Singh Puri

Union civil aviation minister, Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday in a press conference informed that Air bubbles may continue til March- April 2021 as the future of scheduled commercial international flights is now depending on the availability of a vaccine.

“It is difficult to say as there is no country which has completely opened its borders for all. It depends on the availability of a vaccine as countries will feel more confident once a vaccine is there,” the minister said.

Air bubbles, also known as travel bridges or green corridors, remove the waiting period for travelers from certain countries, by allowing the countries to operate their respective carriers.

International flights have been banned in the country since March 22. due to the coronavirus pandemic.Meanwhile,Air India has been operating flights under flagship Vande Bharat Mission since May and India has established bilateral air bubble arrangements with many countries since July.As of now India had ‘air bubble’ arrangements with the Afghanistan,Bahrain,Canada,France,Germany,Iraq,Japan, Maldives, Nigeria,Qatar,the UAE,Kenya,Bhutan,UK and the USA.

On, Domestic flights operation in the country Puri said “Domestic airlines will soon be allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent. At present, they are operating at 65 percent capacity, after domestic flights resumed operations on May 25 — following a gap of two months of lockdown.”

“There isn’t any deadline. But this will happen soon because the domestic numbers are increasing. Before this, I said that the pre-COVID domestic number is going to be achieved between Diwali and New Year. Now I am confident that by the first quarter next year, we will be ready to surpass the pre-COVID number,” the Union Civil Aviation Minister, Puri said.

“This marks the beginning of the second phase of domestic travel as we are now gearing up to face the challenge of welcoming more people in the airports because the festive season is nearly upon us. We had a meeting with the airlines recently in this regard,” Pradeep Singh Kharola, civil aviation secretary said.