After two years, regular international flights to resume from Sunday

After a coronavirus pandemic-induced hiatus of over two years, regular international flights are set to resume from Sunday with airports and airlines getting ready for normal overseas operations.

Battered by the pandemic, the airline industry is slowly coming back to normalcy and the resumption of normal overseas flights is expected to provide a fillip to the sector.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital, which is also the country's largest airport, expects international flight departures to witness a significant jump in the first week of April after the resumption of regular international operations.

While Indian carriers are prepared for normal international services, various foreign airlines, including Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and LOT Polish have also announced plans about their services to and from India.

Scheduled international passenger flights have remained suspended since March 23, 2020 in the wake of the pandemic and they will now restart from Sunday.

Overseas flights are being operated now under bilateral air bubble arrangements with various countries.

On March 8, the civil aviation ministry announced that regular overseas flights will resume from March 27 amid a decline in coronavirus cases.

The government has also revised the Covid guidelines for international flight operations, including the removal of the requirement to keep three seats vacant on overseas flights for medical emergencies.

Besides, the requirement for the crew for having a complete PPE kit has been done away with.

In a statement on Saturday, IndiGo Chief Commercial Officer Willy Boulter said the airline is keen on resuming international operations back to pre-COVID levels but that will also depend on factors like arrival guidelines of various countries.

"We certainly have plans to open new destinations in the near future as well as pump up capacity on our existing routes as travel further opens up. Reaching economies of scale in such a dynamic environment where ATF and other fixed costs are constantly going up, becomes challenging," he said.

IndiGo is the country's largest airline.

On Friday, a DIAL spokesperson said, "Post resumption of commercial operations, South East Asia and Europe are expected to be the main drivers of further international passenger growth".

DIAL, the operator of IGIA, expects to connect to over 60 international destinations after the resumption of regular overseas flights.

IGIA is the country's largest airport and handled around 1.8 lakh passengers per day during pre-COVID times.

The spokesperson had also said the number of international Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) is likely to increase from 165 per day to 300 per day in summer 2022.

The total weekly departures of international flights are expected to increase 66 per cent in the first week of April once the regular overseas flights commence, according to the spokesperson.

This is in comparison to the flights that operated under bilateral air bubble arrangements during winter 2021.

On Friday, Gulf carrier Emirates said it would re-introduce pre-pandemic service frequency across its destinations in the country from April 1.

Prior to late March 2020, when the scheduled international services were stopped by India, Emirates was operating 170 weekly flights to nine destinations, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

All these flights are being restored now, starting from April 1, as per the airline.

These 170 weekly flights include 35 services to Mumbai, 28 to Delhi, 24 to Bengaluru, 21 each to Chennai and Hyderabad, 14 to Kochi, 11 to Kolkata, nine to Ahmedabad and seven to Thiruvananthapuram.

SriLankan Airlines, on Friday, said it would start operating up to 88-weekly flights to India to match the pre-COVID flight schedule. The airline flies to nine cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Chennai and Bangalore.

British carrier Virgin Atlantic would start a second daily service between Delhi and London starting from June 1. Coupled with its service from Mumbai, Virgin Atlantic will offer three daily flights from India, it said on Friday.

"American Airlines is proud to serve India with daily service between New York (JFK) and New Delhi (DEL). As India resumes international flying, we look forward to expanding our presence in the country as we deepen our partnership with IndiGo and plan to launch new service between Seattle (SEA) and Bangalore (BLR) later this year," Rhett Workman, Managing Director – Europe, Middle East and Asia Operations at American Airlines, said in a statement on Friday.

Poland-based LOT Polish Airlines, on Thursday, said it would commence flights to Mumbai from May 31 and resume services to Delhi from March 29.

While mentioning about the resumption of regular international flights, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, on March 8, said, "with this step, I am confident the sector will reach new heights".

On November 26 last year, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had announced the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights from December 15, 2021, but a few days later, the decision was revoked following a surge in coronavirus cases due to the Omicron variant.

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